Assessment of the Disability Indicator Available through IPUMS International for the Calculation of Healthy Life Expectancy

Reiko Hayashi, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan

In view of global and active ageing, defining health is a difficult but important task and various measures are being used for the calculation of healthy life expectancy. The disability indicator is recommended to be included in census and as of October 2014, among the 33 countries with available round 2010 census data on IPUMS-International, 29 countries’ data contain information on disability. For the moment, not all of these countries adopt the disability question in identical manner but the comparison of data proved that the disability rates are comparable if certain conditions are met. There are number of countries where the disability data are not available through census. The notable example is Japan which offers data on disability through sample surveys and registration data. These data will be compared with census data of other countries and the possible implications will be drawn.