Mortality dissimilarities in the context of demographic aging: the countries of Ex-Yugoslavia

Populations experienced a continued increase in longevity, most countries in the world witness demographic aging where longevity is increased. Generally, mortality declined at all ages, with varying intensities, as a result of heterogeneous factors affecting human lifespan. This paper considers switching regression estimation for six ex-Yugoslavian countries with the specification of a time-varying transition probability model of crude death rate. A two-state Markov switching means VAR estimates is used in which the mean growth rate of crude death rate is subject to regime switching, and where the errors follow a constant transition probability. The data for this study were obtained through a UN database, which consists of the crude mortality rate series containing the log difference of yearly crude mortality rate in the six countries of ex-Yugoslavia for 1990–2021. The results show that the estimates of coefficients on the intercept in the mean equation both differ from zero in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Slovenia (only for one equation) and are with opposite and statistically significant signs only for Montenegro and Slovenia. For Croatia and Macedonia, these coefficients are not different from zero. As to the transition matrix parameters, it can be seen that only for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, and partially in Montenegro, increases in the log difference crude death rate are associated with higher probabilities of being in the high crude death rate regime, lowering the transition probability out of regime 1 and increasing the transition probability from regime 2 into regime 1. The transition probability summaries show a higher probability of remaining in the high output state for Macedonia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (0.96, 0.94, and 0.87, respectively). The higher probability of remaining in the low output state was found in Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro (0.96, 0.87, and 0.56, respectively). The appropriate expected durations in the first regime are approximately 26.41, 16.19, and 7.78 years for Macedonia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively and 28.30, 7.80, and 2.28 years were the corresponding expected durations in the second regime for Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro, respectively. Therefore, the gain results from the Switching VAR model point out that there are dissimilarities in terms of regime-switching of mortality rate among ex-Yugoslavian countries. Demographic aging will be more rapid and dramatic in the coming period for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, and partially for Montenegro as a result of the advanced process of population aging and an older population that will determine the average value of crude death rate. On the other hand, as a result of some progress in reducing mortality, the degree of aging will decline in the coming period for Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia.