The changing trend of life expectancy for the Chinese elderly and its rural–urban disparity

Using data from Population Censuses, 1% National Population Sample Surveys of China and the Human Mortality Database, this article adopts robust percentile-based methods to analyze the changing trend of life expectancy of the Chinese elderly especially the young–old and rural–urban disparity from 1989 to 2015, and attempt to explain the disadvantage of old-age mortality improvement in China compared to developed countries. We find that life expectancy at age 65 in China has increased continuously in recent decades, but at a lower speed than in developed countries, leading to a widening gap between China and developed countries, and the increase in e65 has not shown a clear catch-up trend that has been observed in the life expectancy at birth. Similar patterns are found when we explore the rural–urban disparity of China. Based on the age-at-death distribution, we find that the old-age deaths in rural areas are more concentrated at relatively younger ages compared to urban areas due to the higher death risks and slower improvement in mortality of the young–old in rural China. Our findings describe the age-patterns underlying the rural–urban disparity in life expectancy of the elderly within China, and also the main reason for the slower improvement of life expectancy among the Chinese elderly compared with those in developed countries. Survival improvement of the young–old and equalization of available health services are key to reducing the rural–urban bias and achieving accelerated increase in life expectancy among the elderly in China.