MPIDR Technical Report

Spreadsheet for calculation of life-table dispersion measures

Abstract

Measures for the estimation of disparity in respect to length of life within populations are increasingly used. They are calculated from the conventional life table and reflect greater or smaller amounts of inter-individual differences across the life-table cohort. We provide an Excel spreadsheet for building the Lorenz curve and the calculation of life-table dispersion measures. A complete life table is used as input data. The output includes seven measures: the Gini coefficient (concentration index), the average inter-individual difference in age at death (absolute concentration index), the inter-quartile range, the standard deviation, the coefficient of variation, the e-dagger, and Keyfitz’s entropy. (Keywords: life table dispersion, inequality, age at death, Gini concentration index, inter-quartile range, standard deviation, lifetime losses, e-dagger, mortality compression)