Modelling Socio-Economic Differences in Mortality Using a New Affluence Index

We introduce a new modelling framework to explain socioeconomic differences in mortality in terms of an affluence index that combines information on individual wealth and income. The model is illustrated using data on older Danish males over the period 1985-2012 reported in the Statistics Denmark national register database. The model fits the historical mortality data well, captures their key features, generates smoothed death rates that allow us to work with a larger number of subgroups than has previously been considered feasible, and has plausible projection properties