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Black-White Mortality Differentials at Old-Age: New Evidence from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study*

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Applied Demography and Public Health in the 21st Century

Part of the book series: Applied Demography Series ((ADS,volume 8))

Abstract

We investigate the old-age mortality experience of selected cohorts born between 1898 and 1915. Using large samples from the 2013 release of the National Longitudinal Mortality Survey (NLMS) and single-year age grouping, we provide new evidence on the black advantage in old-age survival . Analyzing cohort age-specific morality rates and survival curves from cohort life tables , we observe a black mortality disadvantage that was present at ages 70–75, then narrowed, and completely disappeared by age 85. There is some evidence that mortality is lower for blacks than it is for whites at ages 85–90, consistent with a crossover in age-specific mortality around age 85. However, a distinct crossover age threshold followed by consistently lower age-specific death rates for blacks was not observed. We discuss our results in the context of recent cohort evidence from survey data as well as the literature on black-white mortality crossover.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Statements to the same effect can be found in earlier work. Sibley commented in 1930 that “the fact that in old age the Negro rates are lower than those for whites suggests the selective effect of disease of early life in eliminating the weaker members of the Negro population before they reach middle age” (p. 11).

  2. 2.

    Death registration states of 1920: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and The District of Columbia.

  3. 3.

    Sources: 1939-41—Greville (1947); 1969-71—National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS, 1975); 1979-81—NCHS (1985); 1989-91—NCHS (1997); 1999-2001—Arias, Curtin, Wei and Anderson (2008).

  4. 4.

    Based on the 2010 life table (Arias 2014), 55.0% of black women (64.4% of white women) are predicted to reach the female crossover life expectancy age of 80, while 27.0% of black men (38.3% of white men) are expected to reach the male crossover life expectancy age of 84. Another hypothesis is greater und erenumeration of the black population. Elo (2001) points to low coverage of the black population in the census. She finds that “(b)etween 1930 and 1990, census omission rates for African American men ranged from a high of 10.5% in 1940 to a low of 7.0% in 1980” (p.13). This is consistent with earlier evidence (e.g. Siegel 1974).

  5. 5.

    Another hypothesis is greater underenumeration of the black population. Elo (2001) points to low coverage of the black population in the census. She finds that “(b)etween 1930 and 1990, census omission rates for African American men ranged from a high of 10.5% in 1940 to a low of 7.0% in 1980” (p.13). This is consistent with earlier evidence (e.g. Siegel 1974).

  6. 6.

    Several explanations for why misreporting is a problem particularly for the black population have been given, even though none has emerged as a “smoking gun”. Coale and Kisker (1990) suggest that “age heaping”—the tendency of people to round their age or birth dates—is more common among blacks. The authors state that “heaping on ages divisible by 5 or 10 is a generic characteristic of censuses in which age (at last birthday) is recorded when knowledge of age is imprecise” (p.30). Elo and Preston (1994) propose that poor birth registration and incentives to overstate age as a result of the introduction of Social Security retirement benefits may be at work. Most of the black population aged 60 and older in the 1980s—the period our study covers—was born before 1920 and in the rural South. Before 1920, very few southern states were members of the Birth Registration Area.

  7. 7.

    Using model life table comparisons and adjustments for major sources of error, Zelnik (1969) establishes more broadly the distinct pattern of mortality among the black population. Subsequent analysis of census mortality data by Elo and Preston (1994) affirms the unusual pattern but the authors remain very skeptical.

  8. 8.

    This literature also points to problems with the age data among non-whites. For example, Kestenbaum (1992) finds that only 73% of blacks whose age at death was 65 or over (62% of blacks whose age at death was 85 or over) had a reported age in their Social Security files that exactly matched their death certificate. For whites this percentage was almost 95% (92%).

  9. 9.

    This is the date that the NLMS PUMS assigned as a common starting point for the combined CPS records.

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Acknowledgement

We thank Neil Bennett for helpful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Charlie Nam for helpful discussion at an early stage of this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Sociology, The Graduate Center, CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, City University of New York, 1 Bernard Baruch Way, Box D-901, New York, NY, 10010, USA

    Duygu Başaran Şahin

  2. School of Public Affairs, The Graduate Center of CUNY (Economics), CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, City University of New York, Baruch College, 1 Bernard Baruch Way, Box D-901, New York, NY, 10010, USA

    Frank W. Heiland

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  1. Duygu Başaran Şahin
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Correspondence to Duygu Başaran Şahin .

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  1. Hobby Center for Public Policy, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

    M. Nazrul Hoque

  2. Institute for Demographic and and Socioeconomic Research, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, USA

    Beverly Pecotte

  3. Health Statistics Branch, Center for Public Health Practice, Arkansas Department of Health, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

    Mary A. McGehee

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Şahin, D.B., Heiland, F.W. (2017). Black-White Mortality Differentials at Old-Age: New Evidence from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study* . In: Hoque, M., Pecotte, B., McGehee, M. (eds) Applied Demography and Public Health in the 21st Century. Applied Demography Series, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43688-3_9

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