Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow Mortality in Russia: Evidence from Micro Data Irina Denisova Center for Economic and Financial Research at the New Economic School, Moscow

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow Motivation Relatively high and only slightly declining within the latest decade mortality rates Mortality crisis in High mortality rates among working age population Factors behind? –Environmental –Behavioral

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow

Literature Two branches of literature Aggregate data analysis (mortality registration data, census data) Micro data analysis (follow-up surveys, large panel surveys) Russia –Aggregate data Basic patterns of mortality crisis –Male Cohort within US Lipid Research Clinics Program

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow Research questions What are the determinants of mortality rates (hazard and survival rates)? What is the role of different groups of factors? –hazardous behavior (negative investment into HC) –income –relative income (relative deprivation and unfairness) –stress factors –poor social capital, incl. family characteristics –job-related factors

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow Data Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey Waves 5 – 14 (1994 to 2005) –Nationally representative, about 5,000 households and 10,000 individuals in each round –Panel structure though attrition is a serious issue –If a household member is missing, reasons for being not a hh member: Moved out, another address Separate hh now, same address Death (cause of death since 2001) Other reasons

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow

Methodology Survival analysis –Eliminates estimation bias due to non-normality of time to event and right-censoring –Hazards are estimated for uncensored and survivals for censored –Allows using an unbalanced panel Proportional hazard model Parametric PH model, Gompertz specification λ 0 (t) = exp(γt) exp(β 0 ) Cox PH model specification (non-parametric baseline)

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow Methodology Explanatory variables (X) include –Gender –Education and qualification –Settlement type (urban vs rural) –Smoking, alcohol consumption vs physical exercises (hazardous vs healthy behavior) –Characteristics of diet –Income decile –Relative income position (relative deprivation and unfairness) –Relative respect and power positions –Stress factors (years in unemployment, concern about getting necessities, satisfaction with life) –Job characteristics (hazardous working conditions) –Social capital, incl. family characteristics (family size, marital status, children) Two samples: adults and adults years

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow per subject Categorytotalmeanminmedianmax no.of subjects20419 no.of records exit time failures

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow

Baseline survival function

Family in the changing world, November 28-29, Moscow Results Subjective perception of relative deprivation is an important determinant Higher income deciles are correlated with longer life (could be health effect: good health brings higher income and longer life) Smoking survives all specifications as a detrimental factor Heavy alcohol consumption also matters Better education is beneficial Role family social capital is not very pronounced and operates in opposite directions