Abstract
Before assessing changes in age- and sex-specific patterns of mortality in Ukraine, we have to decide what line to take towards shortcomings, often mentioned in the literature, in recording deaths. In order to judge the quality of registration of deaths, reference is generally made to age-specific model life tables. Just as for Russia (Shkolnikov et al. 1995a), the specific nature of mortality in Ukraine in the adult age groups makes the use of these models tricky, if not futile. However, we must take into consideration the criticisms often made of the quality of mortality data for the very young as well as for the old.
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Notes
- 1.
In 1971, TsSU (the Central Statistical Directorate) decided to record numbers of perinatal deaths and, in 1974, a perinatal death certificate was brought into use.
- 2.
Mortality at 0–27 days.
- 3.
Mortality from the following causes (the figures in brackets indicate the relevant item numbers in the Soviet classification): congenital anomalies of heart (147), other congenital anomalies (145, 146 and 148–150), birth trauma (151), intrauterine hypoxia and birth asphyxia (152), congenital pneumonia and foetal aspiration (153), other newborn respiratory conditions (154), other perinatal conditions (155–157).
- 4.
At this stage, we have not yet analysed the move from the 1952 to the 1965 cause-of-death Classification, and therefore we cannot correctly link the 1959–1964 series of deaths from diseases of early infancy with the post-1965 series.
- 5.
When updating our data set it was possible to get cause-of-death data until 2006 only. It was possible to get infant mortality data until 2007, which made possible correction here discussed for the years 2006 and before.
- 6.
Available cause-of-death distributions for infants aged under 1 year in fact differentiate deaths at 0–27 days.
- 7.
Statistical Report No. 5, RGAE, fonds 15, series 329, file 269.
- 8.
We estimated the age-specific probabilities of dying for 1958 by applying to the 1958–1959 probabilities of dying a ratio such that the mean for 1958 and 1959 again produced the 1958–1959 probability.
- 9.
By interpolating the values given by the model tables.
- 10.
For the 1938–1939 table, Sergei Adamets and Vladimir Shkolnikov made no corrections to infant mortality, but did correct old-age mortality.
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Meslé, F., Vallin, J., Shkolnikov, V. (2012). Is Mortality Under-Estimated?. In: Mortality and Causes of Death in 20th-Century Ukraine. Demographic Research Monographs. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2433-4_4
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