Mortality Trends, Differentials and Modeling for Mortality Forecasting in Bangladesh

Abstract

Mortality is one of the most important vital events and it is a crucial indicator of socio-economic development in any nation. It is said that socio-economic development should be measured in terms of mortality. Bangladesh, a developing country of South Asia, is experiencing significant decline in fertility and mortality in the last few decades. Along with remarkable decline in early aged mortality, senescence mortality also declined in the last decade. But, practically, the pace of socio-economic development is not satisfactory compared with the pace of mortality decline. Though, a common concept regarding mortality is that mortality decline is the consequence of socio-economic development and conversely low mortality is also a cause of ageing population problem. This study attempts to examine the trends, differentials of mortality and modeling for mortality forecasting in Bangladesh. It has also projected population using forecasted mortality to know its impact on population in future. Present study has revealed that female mortality declined somewhat faster than that of male in both rural and urban areas. Initially male life expectancy at birth (e0) was greater than that of female, later on it changes and female life expectancy at birth becomes greater than that of male. A sharp decline in childhood mortality and old age mortality is happened in last two decades. Similar declining trend of mortality has evident in both rural and urban areas. Sensitivity analysis of life expectancy at birth has shown that the childhood mortality and old age mortality have more effect than other age group mortality to increase life expectancy. Decomposition analysis of difference of mortality rate between different census periods has indicated that age specific mortality rate effect is generally more attributable than age composition population effect. Using mortality data from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), this study forecasted life expectancy at birth for 40 years (2012-2051). The life expectancy at birth will increased to more than 82 years for male and more than 86 years for female. During the whole projection period life expectancy at birth for female is higher than that of male. The increasing pattern of life expectancy at birth is similar in rural and urban areas. Population projection demonstrates that working age population (15-59 or 15-64) will increase till 2021 and then decrease very slowly ii (almost stagnant) towards the rest of the period. In spite of a slow decline in working age people after 2021, still there will be a huge number of working age people until 2051. The percentage of young age population (0-14) will decrease during the whole projection period and the percentage of old age population (60+ or 65+) will increase during the whole projection period which results a large number of elderly people. In spite of remarkable decline in childhood mortality, it is still high compared to developed countries. Finally, this study suggests that the increasing number of elderly people would create ageing population problem in near future. Moreover, proper steps should be needed to create job opportunity to employ the huge number of working age population in various sectors of country’s economic development. Otherwise, they will be the burden of the society and create social problems. At the same time, proper health policy should be taken to provide healthcare facilities for the growing number of population. The country also needs to think about suitable steps like pension scheme, various allowances etc. for the elderly people.