Multidimensional healthy life expectancy of the older population in China

Abstract

Research on healthy life expectancy (HLE) that considers cognitive impairment has been inadequate, particularly in the context of less developed countries. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, our study fills this research gap by computing active life expectancy (ALE), cognitive-impairment-free life expectancy (CIFLE), and active and cognitive-impairment-free life expectancy (ACIFLE) for China’s older population, using multistate life tables. Results show that at age 60, the three life expectancies were 19.4 years (ALE), 9.5 years (CIFLE), and 8.8 years (ACIFLE) during the period 2011–13. HLE exhibits significant differentials by sex, urban/rural residence, educational level, marital status, and health status at age 60. Among China’s older people, males and those living in urban areas experience higher CIFLE, and those who live with a spouse, are more educated, and are healthy at age 60 expect more years in good health according to all three HLE measures.

Supplementary material for this article is available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2021.1914854

Keywords:

• population ageing
• healthy life expectancy
• multistate life table method
• cognitive-impairment-free life expectancy
• longitudinal studies

Notes

1 Guogui Huang and Fei Guo are based in the Department of Management, Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University, Australia. Guogui Huang is also based at the Institute of Population Research, Peking University, China, as is Gong Chen.

2 Please direct all correspondence to Gong Chen, Room 211, Building of Economic Faculty, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, China, 100871; or by Email: [email protected]

3 Data were sourced from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, available at http://charls.pku.edu.cn/.

4 The authors thank Peking University for the permission to use the CHARLS survey data and Macquarie University for a generous cotutelle PhD Scholarship for this study.