Construction of Abridged Life Tables for Districts in India: Using UNCOMBIN of MORTPAK-LITE

Krishna Murthy Ponnapalli, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

In the recent past there is a growing concern for reliable life tables for smaller units like districts in India for effective planning. Very few researchers made attempts to develop district level life tables. Lack of reliable information on age-specific death rates at the district level hinders all the attempts. Thus in the present study an attempt is made to suggest a simple procedure to develop district level life tables that requires reliable information only on infant mortality rate (IMR). Given the IMR it is suggested here to use a simple regression model to estimate life expectancy at age 20 (LE20). Finally, using the above two piecesof information and the UNCOMBIN program of the MORTPAK-LITE it is shown here how to obtain a reliable district level life table without much affort. Life tables thus constructed are given for Punjab and its districts by region and sex as an illustration.