1957 - United Nations Statistics Division

of deaths. Certainly, it must be assumed that completeness
of registration of deaths has improved during the
last 20 years and, if lower rates persist, they must be
reflections of lower mortality risk and of changes in
population composition resulting from the high birth
rates of the past decades.
Actual percentage declines in mortality over the two
decades were, in general, highest in countries where the
1930-34 rate had been high to begin with, and correspondingly
slighter declines were observed in Europe,
North America, and Oceania, where rates were already
low in the early period. For example, the rate for Northern
Ireland was 18.2 in 1930-34; it declined 37.4% to
11.4 in 1950-54. However, the rate for England and Wales
which was already 12.0 in 1930-34 declined only 3.3%
to 11.6 per 1,000. Similarly, the rate for Maoris in New
Zealand, having been 15.5 in the early period, declined
27.7% to 11.2, while that for the European population
increased 10.8% from 8.3 to 9.2.
Declines of over 40% were observed in 23 countries,
and 14 of these were in countries where crude death rates
in 1930-34 had been over 20 per 1,000. These countries
of previous maximum death rates and maximum decline
are scattered all over the world, including Mauritius,
Egypt, Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador, Barbados, Chile,
Singapore, India, Ceylon, Romania, and China
(Taiwan) .
Expectation of life
Reductions in mortality imply an increase in the
chance of survival. These can be seen in the statistics of
survivorship, beginning on p. 590, but they are more
dramatically demonstrated in the increases in the average
future lifetime expected at birth. Some idea of the gains
made over the past 50 years can be obtained from the
expectation-of-life values for 21 countries which have a
series of life tables from the first decade of the 20th century
to the present. These values, which are set forth in
Table D below, have been taken from Table 24 (p. 558).
Table D. Expectation of life at birth, by sex: 21 countries,
circa 1900 and 1950
Country
MALE FEMALE
Circa Circa Gain in Circa Circa Gain in
1900 1950 years 1900 1950 years
------------
Austria ••••••••••••••••••••• 39 62 23 41 67 26
Belgium ••••••••••••••.•••.• 45 62 17 49 67 18
Denmark ••••••••••••••••••• 53 68 15 56 70 14
England and Wales•••••••••. 49 66 17 52 71 19
Finland •.••••••••.••••••••• 45 63 18 48 70 22
France.••.•.••.••.••••. ··· . 45 64 19 49 69 20
Germany, West••••••••••••• 45 65 20 48 68 20
Hungary•••••.••••••••••••• 37 59 22 38 63 25
Iceland •••••••••••••••••••• 48 66 18 53 70 17
India ..••••.•.••••••••••••• 23 32 9 24 32 8
Ireland••••••••••••••••••••• 49 65 16 50 67 17
Japan ..•.••••••••••••••••• 44 61 17 45 65 20
Netherlands••••.•••••••••••. 51 71 20 53 73 20
New Zealand (European)•••••. 58 68 10 61 72 11
Northern Ireland•••.••••••••• 47 65 18 47 69 22
Norway••.••••••••••••••••• 55 69 14 58 73 15
Spain•••••••••••••••••••••• 34 59 25 36 64 28
Sweden.••.•••••.•••••••••. 55 69 14 57 72 15
Switzerland••..••••••••••.•. 49 66 17 52 71 19
Trinidad and Tobago••••••••• 37 60 23 39 63 24
United States•••••••••••.••• 48 65 17 51 71 20
5
It will be seen that under mortality conditions prevailing
around 1900 in Spain, mean future lifetime for
males, measured from birth, was as much as 25 years less
than it was in 1950. The least gain in the 50-year period
was made in India, where there was an increase of only
9 years. For females, the greatest gain was also made by
Spain, with an increase of 28 years in life expectancy;
in India, the corresponding advance was 8 years.
This dramatic lengthening and, to some extent, equalizing
of the potential life span have been brought about
in every country for which statistics are available. But the
difference in the amount of gain points to the need for
intensive study of the ways in which areas where expectation
of life is still relatively low can profit by the experience
of other countries and achieve in a shorter
period equivalent gains in longevity.
The question now arises as to the possible duration
and future speed of the declines in mortality which have
been observed in the past. As has been pointed out above,
the average crude death rates for the period 1950-54 with
few exceptions showed declines over the pre-war rates
for 1930-34, whether only "complete" statistics were considered
or also those whose reliability was questionable.
For the 60 countries with virtually accurate data, Graph
No. 4 on p. 7 of the 1956 Demographic Yearbook revealed
that average rates for 1950-54 were also lower than
those for 1945-49, except in Israel, Gibraltar, and Hawaii.
Is this tendency toward decreasing mortality continuing
or are there indications of a reversal? To investigate this
aspect, 3-year average crude death rates for the periods
1950-52 and 1953-55 have been computed for 76 countries.
The comparison between these is set forth in Chart II
on page 6.
Chart H reveals at once that death rates have continued
to decline. Of the 76 countries for which data are available,
70 show lower rates in 1953-55 as compared with
1950-52, while 4 show increases and 2 remain unchanged.
Examination of the changes by continent reveals that
2 of the 4 increases are shown for Mauritius and Montserrat
- both of which might be due to improvement in
registration - while increases recorded for West Germany
and the Netherlands are probably symptomatic of changing
age composition in these countries of traditional low
death rates and declining fertility.
Thus it may be said that although declines reflected in
Chart II do not appear to be so great as those for 1950­
54 over 1945-49 (due partly to the fact that the period
covered is 6 years in the former rather than 10), still
reductions in mortality have been maintained until the
present. It is possible that the tendency toward clustering
along the diagonal reflects the beginning of stabilization
of the death rate, but more evidence will be needed to
establish this point.
SEX DIFFERENTIALS
Evidence available from data in the Yearbook confirms
the well-known assertion that total female mortality is
consistently lower than that for males, in every area for