Cause-Specific Contributions to Sex Differences in Adult Mortality among Whites and African Americans between 1960 and 1995

Irma T. Elo, University of Pennsylvania
Greg L. Drevenstedt, University of Pennsylvania

This paper investigates sex differences in adult mortality among whites and African Americans between 1960 and 1995. In recent years sex differences in life expectancy increased for blacks and declined for whites. To gain insights into why sex differences are larger for blacks than whites and why trends have diverged in recent decades, we investigate the contribution of cause-specific mortality trends to trends in overall mortality by race. We focus our analyses on ages 15 to 64, because these ages make the largest contribution to sex differences in life expectancy at birth. We further break the age range into two groups: ages 15 to 34 and 35 to 64 because the contribution of various causes of death to overall mortality varies by age.