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Changing effect of the numerator-denominator bias in unlinked data on mortality differentials by education: evidence
Domantas Jasilionis1,2, Mall Leinsalu3,4
1Laboratory of Demographic Data, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany jasilionis@demogr.mpg.de.
Background:
This study highlights changing disagreement between census and death record information in the reporting of the education of the deceased and shows how these reporting differences influence a range of mortality inequality estimates.
Methods:
This study uses a census-linked mortality data set for Estonia for the periods 2000-2003 and 2012-2015. The information on the education of the deceased was drawn from both the censuses and death records. Range-type, Gini-type and regression-based measures were applied to measure absolute and relative mortality inequality according to the two types of data on the education of the deceased.
Results:
The study found a small effect of the numerator-denominator bias on unlinked mortality estimates for the period 2000-2003. The effect of this bias became sizeable in the period 2012-2015: in high education group, mortality was overestimated by 23-28%, whereas the middle education group showed notable underestimation of mortality. The same effect was small for the lowest education group. These biases led to substantial distortions in range-type inequality measures, whereas unlinked and linked Gini-type measures showed somewhat closer agreement.
Conclusions:
The changing distortions in the unlinked estimates reported in this study warn that this type of evidence cannot be readily used for monitoring changes in mortality inequalities.
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