Recent mortality trends in Latin America, Asia and Africa: Review and re-interpretation

The article summarizes the mortality experience of the world's low-income areas during the past generation, as evidenced by the available data on trends, levels and sex-age characteristics. A major focus of the review is to set this recent history in perspective, by comparing it with previous long-run mortality declines in higher-income areas. A second focus is upon causal factors; the interpretation emphasized is that these were relatively specific and technical, more exogenous to, than dependent upon, overall economic or social development. A third general focus is upon consequences, with attention to the possible or probable effects of the recent mortality declines upon size of population, age composition, labour force, traditional fertility patterns and growth prospects of the newly developing nations.