Disability pensioners and relative mortality trends in Norway

Norwegian mortality levels have been declining during the last decades. Simultaneously the proportion of the population receiving disability pension has been increasing substantially, especially among the women. Several previous studies have demonstrated a higher mortality of disability pensioners relative to the rest of the population. We investigate how the mortality level of people on - and not on - disability pension changes over time by applying population registry data for cohort analysis. We observe mortality over the period 1971-2010. Preliminary results show that relative mortality levels of female disability pensioners have declined substantially over the last decades.