Mortality and Health Expectancy of the Chinese Elderly

China has experienced an extraordinary mortality transition over the last 60 years. However, mortality decline has not been consistent and uniform across all ages. Changes in health interventions and programs have particularly heavily affected health and mortality at old ages. This paper examines trends in China’s old-age mortality and its underlying determinants. Three stages of old-age mortality changes can be identified. Sharp fall in old-age mortality from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, stagnation in mortality improvement during the 1980s-1990s, and large decline again from 2000 to 2010. Life expectancy in China was rising overall, but perceived health expectancy at age 60 had stalled between 1992 to 2000. The last 10 years have seen marked improvement in both life expectancy and perceived health expectancy. Mortality change has been more evident for females than for males. There are reflections of social, economic and medical policy changes in each of the phases, which may have different impacts on different population subgroups. Deterioration in health at old ages was observed as a consequence of the economic and medical reform, while old-age mortality improvement is largely a result of government efforts in establishing urban and rural medical insurance systems.