Seventy Years of Mortality Transition in India: 1950-2021

Abstract

AbstractMortality in India remains high by international standards. This paper analyses mortality transition in India during the 70 years since 1950 based on the annual estimates of age-specific probabilities of death prepared by the United Nations Population Division for the period 1950-2021. The analysis reveals that characterisation of mortality transition is sensitive to the summary index of mortality used. Mortality transition in India based on the geometric mean of the age-specific probabilities of death is found to be different from that based on the life expectancy at birth. The transition in mortality based on the geometric mean of age-specific probabilities of death accelerated during 2008-2019 but decelerated when based on the life expectancy at birth. The reason is that mortality transition in younger ages has been faster than mortality transition in older ages. The analysis also reveals that there were around 4.3 excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 epidemic in the country leading to a loss of around 3.7 years in the life expectancy at birth between 2019 and 2021.