Mortality effects of economic fluctuations in selected eurozone countries

Socioeconomic status is commonly conceptualized as the social standing or well-being of an individual or society. Higher socioeconomic status has long been identified as a contributing factor for mortality improvement. This paper studies the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations (having gross domestic product (GDP) as a proxy) on mortality for the nine most populous eurozone countries. Based on the statistical analysis between the time-dependent indicator of the Lee and Carter (Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1992, 87(419), 659-671) model and GDP, and adaptation of the good features of the O'Hare and Li (Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 2012, 50, 12-25) model, a new mortality model including this additional economic-related factor is proposed. Results for male and female from ages between 0 and 89, and similar for unisex data, are provided. This new model shows a better fitting and more plausible forecast among a significant number of eurozone countries. An in-depth analysis of our findings is provided to give a better understanding of the relationship between mortality and GDP fluctuations.