This paper examines the effects of happiness on the sex gap in life expectancy. Utilizing a cross-country data set, it first inspects the reverse effect of the life expectancy gap on happiness and demonstrates that the life expectancy gap negatively affects happiness through the composition of...

This article examines the increasing life expectancy of Japanese men and women in relation to their health from 1986 to 2004. We computed healthy life expectancy for seven available time-points using the prevalence-based Sullivan method. The results showed that, for both sexes and at all ages,...

The wealth of a country is assumed to have a strong non-linear influence on the life expectancy of its inhabitants. We follow up on research by Preston and study the relationship with gross domestic product. Smooth curves for the average but also for (upper) frontiers are constructed by a...

While, during several decades, unfavourable trends in mortality were quite similar in Central Europe and in the former USSR, in the most recent years, these two parts of Europe are diverging. In most Central European countries, life expectancy is now increasing mainly thanks to a decline in...

In this paper I explore the formal relationship between period and cohort mortality, focusing on a comparison of measures of mean lifespan. I consider not only the usual measures (life expectancy at birth for time periods and birth cohorts) but also some alternative measures that have been...

This paper presents a toolkit for measuring and analyzing inter-individual inequality in length of life by Gini coefficient. Gini coefficient and four other inequality measures are defined on the length-of-life distribution. Properties of these measures and their empirical testing on mortality...