Assessing the contribution of age‐sex differentials in causes of death due to infectious and parasitic diseases to the trends in age‐sex differentials in life expectancy in Mauritius

Abstract

This study applies two methodologies to Mauritian life tables and cause‐of‐death data: (1) the decomposition of sex differentials in life expectancy using Arriaga's approach and (2) the estimation of the effect of marginal reduction in deaths from infectious and parasitic diseases on life expectancy using Keyfitz's methodology on cause‐specific entropy and that of Nanjo. The findings in this paper support earlier findings about the importance of the period 1969–1976 in the mortality transition in Mauritius, a period in which sex differentials in life expectancies reached a peak level. The results suggest that the driving force behind those sex differentials in life expectancy was the sex differential in mortality in infectious and parasitic diseases, first among the young (ages below 10 years) and second among the older population (ages above 50 years). If the decline in mortality due to infectious and parasitic diseases was differentially greater in the older ages compared to the younger ages, that difference would have gone a long way toward reducing the magnitude of the historic peak sex differential in life expectancy achieved in 1976.