Modernization of Mortality Order and its Socio-cultural Factors : 1840～1969

Abstract

On examining 565 life tables of 428 countries from 1840 to 1969, mortality rates by age-group are decreasing as respective 10 years' period passed by. The degree of mortality improvement for females is generally higher than that for males. Then the number surviving at every age is increasing, and the age of l_0 decreasing by 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4. is advancing as respective period passed by. As the result of extension of life expectancy at each age, e^^○_0 extended 1.59 times in the 1960's as compared with that in 1840〜1879. So we can say that the trend of modernized mortality order is progressing in the present century, especially after the World War II. We have set up the hypothesis that the modernization of mortality order advances with developments in socio-cultural fields. The grouping of socio-cultural indices by country is the independent variable (X), and the e^^○_0 by country is the dependent variable (Y). We set up the working hypothesis that a multiple correlation exists between X and Y. We employ multiple regression analysis and path analysis to prove it. On examining both the partial correlation coefficients and the factor loading rates within each exogenous variable, the indices with the most striking influence on Y are found to belong generally to the fields of education, health and urbanization. Thus, we can regard the above hypothesis as having largely been proved by the above data. Our conclusion is that the modernization of mortality order in the countries of 1840-1969 was much influenced by the development of socio-cultural factors.