Mortality at Old Ages: Evaluation of Data Quality

Dmitri A. Jdanov, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and New Economic School, Russia
Domantas Jasilionis, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

The old age population in developed countries has increased remarkably. Yet internationally comparable high quality data on oldest-old mortality remain relatively scarce. Our study addresses several data quality issues relevant to population and death statistics above the age 80. Following previous studies by V.Kannisto, we apply the same set of measures and introduce new methods. Using data from the Human Mortality Database, we update prior findings by extending the analyses made so far to thirty five countries and by adding data on longer historical periods. We propose a systematic classification of country- and period-specific data, thus simultaneously accounting for each indicator of data quality. The results show that the data quality varies across countries and time periods. We found that data for some countries such as Chile, Canada, Germany, and the USA, mortality indicators for the most advanced ages should be treated with caution even for the most recent decades.