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Cited by 5Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk ManagementHealth disparities and outcomesHealthcare Systems and Public Health

The boomer penalty: excess mortality among baby boomers in Canada and the United States

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Acosta, Enrique, Gagnon, Alain, Ouellette, Nadine, Bourbeau, Robert R., Nepomuceno, Marilia, van Raalte, Alyson A.·2020
DOI 10.4054/mpidr-wp-2020-003
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Abstract

Studies suggest that, relative to adjacent cohorts, baby boomers in Canada and the United States have experienced a slowdown, or even a deterioration, in mortality improvements.These findings are counterintuitive and surprising since the unprecedented improvements in early life conditions experienced by baby boomers should have led to declines in morbidity and mortality in later life, as was the case for earlier generations.The present study explores the mechanisms that could have produced this "excess" mortality among the baby boom cohorts in Canada and in three racial/ethnic groups in the United States.Using micro-level mortality data from vital statistics systems, we analyzed the contributions of the causes of death that are likely driving this cohort's excess mortality, and their dynamics over time.The analyses were done using demographic decomposition, visual, and statistical methods.We found evidence of a higher susceptibility of the trailing edge boomers (those born around 1960) to behavioral causes of death: namely, mortality from drugs, alcohol, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, COPD, and suicide.Most of these causes contributed to the all-cause mortality disadvantage of baby boomers through sustained cohort effects that followed the cohorts over time.This finding calls into question the assumption that secular improvements in early life conditions lead to a monotonic decline in cohort mortality rates.Instead, there may be important disruptions in the continuous progress in health and mortality, and it is possible that the baby boom generation represents one such disruption.This insight calls for a rethinking of the mechanisms that drive current age-period-cohort mortality patterns.The mechanisms that can generate the observed cohort disadvantage of baby boomers -such as the higher levels of distress and frustration as well as the riskier attitudes toward drug use and sexual practices that are constituent of the boomer generation identity -are addressed and discussed.

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Authors
Acosta, E., Gagnon, A., Ouellette, N., Bourbeau, R. R., Nepomuceno, M., & van Raalte, A. A.
Affiliations
  • Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (DE)
  • Université de Montréal (CA)
ORCID
Publisher
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Published
2020-01
DOI
10.4054/mpidr-wp-2020-003
OpenAlex
W3002219306
Cited by
5
References
126
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2
Type
report
Language
en
Open access
Locations
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
  • Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Healthcare Systems and Public Health
Keywords
baby boomers, excess mortality, cohort effects, age-period-cohort analysis, causes of death, drug-related deaths, alcohol-related mortality, HIV mortality, hepatitis C, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, suicide, racial and ethnic groups, mortality trends, Canada, United States

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