Abstract
According to the most recent annual report released by Korea Statistics, the life expectancy at birth (for both sexes) in 2018 was 82.7 years, an increase of 0.0 years over 2017, reflecting the first stagnation in life expectancy since 1960. In this study, a time-series analysis was conducted of trends in life expectancy from 2003 to 2018, and causes of death were analyzed using the Kannisto-Thatcher method and the Arriaga decomposition method. The time trend analysis of yearly life expectancy changes indicated that, in Korea, there was a tendency for the yearly increase in life expectancy between 2003 and 2018 to decrease by 0.0211 years per calendar year. The contribution of cardiovascular diseases, the most important contributor to the life expectancy increase in Korea, gradually decreased over this period. The contribution of cardiovascular diseases to the life expectancy increase was 0.506 years in 2003-2006, but this contribution decreased to 0.218 years in 2015-2018. The positive contributions of ill-defined causes and external causes to life expectancy increase detected in previous periods were not evident in 2015-2018. Diseases of the respiratory system made the largest negative contribution both between 2015 and 2018 and between 2017-2018. The life expectancy stagnation in 2018 could be understood as the combined effect of (a) decreasing momentum in the increase of life expectancy and (b) a chance event in 2018 involving life expectancy. Currently, it is difficult to judge whether the stagnation of life expectancy in 2018 is temporary, and further analyses of life expectancy and contributing causes of death in the future are needed.
Highlights
Life expectancy in South Korea increased at an unprecedented rate from 52.4 years in 1960, which was 16 years below the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average at the time, to 62.2 years in 1970 and 78.5 years in 2005 [1]
Aggregate population and mortality data grouped by calendar year, sex, and age groups were provided by the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS)
When we examined the contribution of pneumonia to the change in life expectancy for four sub-periods (S3 Table), consistent negative contributions to the life expectancy increase were noticed, but the negative contribution in 2015–2018 was the greatest among the four sub-periods
Summary
Life expectancy in South Korea (hereafter, ‘Korea’) increased at an unprecedented rate from 52.4 years in 1960, which was 16 years below the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average at the time, to 62.2 years in 1970 and 78.5 years in 2005 [1]. Life expectancy in Korea reached 82.7 years in 2017, with an average annual increase of 0.46 years from 1970 to 2017, corresponding to one of the highest rates of increase among OECD member countries, along with Turkey (average annual increase of 0.54 years) and Chile (average annual increase of 0.40 years) [2]. The magnitude of the annual increase in life expectancy has varied, no stagnation or decrease in life expectancy has been recorded in Korea in the past decades.
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