Effect of age-specific mortality on the average life expectancy in Bulgaria.

Using a concise method, we estimated the effect of mortality in specific age groups on the average life expectancy in Bulgaria. The method enables the calculation of the index from all causes of death as well as hypothetically, eliminating the mortality of the age groups involved in the study: under 1 year of age, 1 to 14-year-olds, 15 to 59-year-olds, and 60-year-olds and over 60. The detailed dynamic analysis of the influence of these four age groups mortality showed that the decrease in child mortality influenced positively the average life expectancy making it rise. This was especially clearly seen in the period until the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s the influence of the child mortality became insignificant and the major reserve for increasing the average life expectancy remained the decrease in active-life mortality.