There are Large Disparities between U.S. States in Cardiovascular Mortality among Adults aged 55 and Older

Over the past 20 years, declines in cardiovascular disease mortality rates have been much smaller in some U.S. states than others. Rates have also started to increase in some states in recent years

New York State’s Counties Have Different Trends in Population Aging

The percentage of the population age 60+ is growing faster in NY than in the U.S. overall

Gender Inequality in Unpaid Domestic Housework and Childcare Activities and Its Consequences on Childbearing Decisions: Evidence from Iran

The present study addressed gender inequality in unpaid domestic housework and childcare activities and its presumed impact on childbearing decisions in Iran. We used the second Iran’s Time Use Study (2014-2015), representing the urban population to investigate how the number of small children (aged seven and lower) affected the time devoted to unpaid domestic housework as well as childcare activities of urban employed couples in Iran. The univariate analysis provided sufficient evidence of increasing workload with the number of small children for employed women, while men’s workload remained almost unchanged across all parities. The results indicated that an increase in the number of small children significantly increased the workload of urban employed women, while men’s meager participation in such chores suggested the existence of a significant gender gap in these activities. For example, urban employed men with no small children spent 8 hours and 43 minutes while those with one or two small children spent 8 hours and 40 minutes on paid and unpaid domestic work. In comparison, employed women with no small children spent 9 hours and 7 minutes, while those with one small child spent 9 hours and 20 minutes, and those with two small children spent 9 hours and 45 minutes on mentioned activities. Thus, the gender inequality in allocated time to paid and unpaid work peaked at 1 hour and 5 minutes in families with two and more small children. Based on the data presented, it can be concluded that along with an increasing amount of unpaid work a less gender egalitarian division of labor exists. Gender inequality in unpaid domestic work among employed couples might lead to continued low fertility and an even further reduction of it in the future in Iran

The bootstrap approach to the multistate life table method using Stata: Does accounting for complex survey designs matter?

Objective: I aim to develop a Stata program that estimates multistate life table quantities and their confidence intervals while controlling for covariates of interest, as well as adjusting for complex survey designs. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (2000-2016), I use the new program to estimate US females' total, healthy, and unhealthy life expectancies and their intervals by race/ethnicity at age 52 (the youngest age in the sample), while adjusting for education. Methods: Using the nonparametric bootstrap technique (with replacement), the present study offers and validates an age-inhomogeneous first-order Markov chain multistate life table program. The current proposed Stata program is the maximum likelihood version of Lynch and Brown's Bayesian approach to the multistate life table method, which has been developed in R. I use the estimates from the Bayesian approach to validate the estimates from the unweighted bootstrap approach. I also account for the HRS complex survey design using the HRS baseline survey design indicators (clustering, strata, and sample weights). I utilize the estimates from the unweighted and weighted bootstrap models to evaluate the extent to which ignoring the HRS complex survey design alters the estimates. Results: The health expectancy estimates obtained from the unweighted bootstrap approach are consistent with estimates from the Bayesian approach, which ignores complex survey designs. This indicates that the bootstrap approach developed in the current paper is valid. Also, the results show that ignoring the HRS complex survey design does not meaningfully alter the estimates. Contribution: The paper contributes to the multistate life table methods literature by providing a flexible, valid, and user-friendly program to estimate multistate life table quantities and their variabilities in Stata

Introducing the Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD) Age-at-Death Data Tracker

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) die younger than those without such disabilities in the U.S. This data slice introduces a new data tracking tool that shows age-at-death trends for adults with intellectual disability, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other rare developmental disabilities, as well as those without IDD. The website, which will be updated annually, allows users to compare age-at-death patterns for each IDD group by U.S. state, year, biological sex, and race-ethnicity

The Chances of Dying Young Differ Dramatically Across U.S. States

The chances of dying young differ dramatically across U.S. states. This data slice shows state-level differences in rates of death by ages 30, 50, and 65. Individuals living in Minnesota, California, New York, and Massachusetts have the lowest rates of death by age 65, whereas those living in Southern states, including West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma have the highest rates of premature death. If current conditions remain constant in these states, more than 1 in 5 people born in them will not survive to age 65

What is unpaid female labour worth? Evidence from the Time Use Studies of Iran in 2008 and 2009

This paper uses the Time Use Survey of Iran of 2008 and 2009 to estimate the monetary value of unpaid domestic work of urban housewives. The surveys recorded domestic work activities such as cooking and cleaning and general care of household members as well as care of children and their education. Using the market-based approach to estimate the monetary value of unpaid domestic work we collected data on the cost of buying in services for domestic work and for education of children from ‘nursing agencies’ and private education colleges in main cities of Iran in the summer of 2011 that were adjusted to obtain the 2008 and 2009 prices. The market value of domestic work of urban housewives was estimated to be US$25 billion in 2008 and US$29 billion in 2009. These were about 8.6 per cent of non-oil GDP in the same years. Our estimates complement other findings from around the world that confirm substantial contribution of housewives to the economy. These contributions have gone unrecorded and not compensated in most countries. At a minimum, housewives can be insured against basic contingencies of life such has health problems, poverty and disabilities and supported in old age. Our work and other studies do provide the economic and social arguments for costing and putting into practice the long overdue support for housewives; they have earned it

Conservative State Policies Contribute to Higher Mortality Rates among Working-age Americans

The risk of dying during working ages (25 to 64) is high, rising, and unequal in the United States. Working-age mortality rates are much higher in some states than others. Part of the explanation may relate to differing policies across states that affect health. While some states enact policies that invest in people’s economic, social, and behavioral wellbeing, others enact policies that are potentially harmful to health. Using mortality data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this study examined how state policies on criminal justice, taxes, environment, firearms, marijuana, health care, labor, and tobacco were associated with the risk of dying among working-age adults from 2000 to 2019. The authors also estimated how changing these policies across a liberal-to-conservative continuum might affect the risks of dying from any cause and from cardiovascular disease (CVD), suicide, alcohol, and drug poisoning. The authors found that more conservative marijuana policies and more liberal policies on firearms, labor, environment, taxes, and tobacco were related to lower risk of death among working-age adults. Simulations show that changing all eight state policy domains to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019, while changing them to a fully conservative orientation might have cost 217,635 lives. Fixing the high and rising mortality among working-age adults requires state policymakers to enact policies that provide a foundation for all Americans to achieve economic, social, and behavioral wellbeing

Trends, determinants and the implications of population aging in Iran

Fertility and mortality decline are major drivers of Iran's population aging. A rapid and sharp fall in fertility rates over the past three decades as well as a substantial rise in life expectancy are causing rapid aging of Iran’s population. The present paper uses the 2015 United Nations Population Division data to discuss the trends, determinants and the implications of population aging in Iran. According to the medium fertility variant, people age 60 and older will represent 31 percent (almost 29 million people) of Iran’s population by 2050. The population age 65 and older is projected to be 22 percent (more than 20 million) and that of aged 80 and older 3.8 percent (around 3.5 million) in 2050, that are almost four-times the corresponding figures in 2015. Data on the speed of population aging show that Iran is the second fastest aging cou