Population Structure and Life Expectancy: Community Area Dynamics in Leeds,

1991-2001

Phil Rees, John Stillwell and Amy Tyler-JonesSchool of Geography, University of Leeds

Paper presented at the Second International Conference on ‘Population Geographies’, RGS

(with IBG) Population Geography Research Group, 11-14 August 2004, University of St. Andrews,

Scotland

Context and Aims

• Twenty-First Century Leeds: Geographies of a Regional City, edited by Rachael Unsworth and John Stillwell, published by the School of Geography in celebration of the University of Leeds Centenary (1904-2004)

• Aims of paper (part of book):– To characterise Leeds

neighbourhoods in terms of their age and household structures

– To characterise one important element that is changing that structure: mortality, by estimating how life chances vary by neighbourhood in Leeds

Population pyramids: Leeds vs Eng & Wales, 1991 & 2001

1991High early century births

Late 40s bulge

1955-1971 baby boom

Post 1971 baby bust

1986-91 revival

Leeds student/yuppie surplus

2001Leeds younger than E&W

Pyramid evolving to urn

Yuppies stay on

Students have grown

The changing sex ratio (males per 100 females)Leeds and England & Wales, 1991 & 2001

Natural male surplus

Missing men (emigrated without their women)

Better female survival chances

But males are catching up

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

120.0

Se

x r

ati

o

EW 1991 Leeds 1991 EW 2001 Leeds 2001

What happens at the neighbourhood scale?Where are the Leeds communities?

• City council survey leads to 100 communities

• Leeds team (Stillwell, Tyler-Jones, Shepherd) match neighbourhoods to 2001 Census Output Areas

• Six extra Communities added to give detail to rural periphery

• 106 Community Areas on the map

The geography of household types (1): single person households

• Single person households are concentrated in the inner city and inner suburbs

The geography of household types (2): family households, all pensioner

• All pensioner households are concentrated in the outer suburbs to the north of the city

The geography of household types (3): family households, married couples

• Married couple household are concentrated in the outer suburbs with recent housing developments

The geography of household types (4): family households, cohabiting couples

• Cohabiting couple family households are concentrated in the southern and western suburbs (where there is affordable housing)

The geography of household types (5): family households, lone parent

• Lone parent households are concentrated in inner city, low cost housing neighbourhoods

The geography of household types (6): Other households

• Other households (multi-member,unrelated) are concentrated in the inner suburbs to the north of the city centre

The Geography of Age Groups:Children (0-15 years old)

Multi-ethnic neighbourhoods

Social housing estates

Newer suburban housing

The student quarter

(a) 1991 Census

(b) 2001 Census

The Geography of Age Groups:16-64 years of age

The student quarter

The outer suburbs

(a) 1991 Census

(b) 2001 Census

“Students are the new Blacks” (The Economist, 2004)

• University centred residential distribution

• Differences between locations of UG year ones and others and PGs

• Communal Housing linked to transport axis

• Town-gown conflicts and protests about Multiple Occupancy Housing

• New policy for University build: southward and regeneration linked

The Geography of Age Groups:65 years and older

• Concentration outside the inner city and social housing estates

• Shift outwards over the decade

• Combination of ageing in place and some out-migration

• (a) 1991 Census

• (b) 2001 Census

Institutional facilities for the “most infirm old” and “the convicted”

• 1.3% of the 2001 population lives in communal establishments

• Rees senior• There is both

private and social provision

• Includes nursing homes, old persons’ homes, childrens’ homes, younger offenders’ institutions & adult prisons

Communal Establishments

Changing dependency ratios 1991-2001

• The dependency ratio is defined here as 100 times (population aged 0-15 + population aged 65+)/(population aged 16-64)

• There are both increases and decreases: increasing dependency ratios are not universal

• Ageing in the 1991-2001 in the UK was subdued (1920-40 cohorts were smaller than 1900-1920 cohorts)

• Note student quarter becomes “more adult”

A demographic classification of community areas

Cluster CAs Cluster label

1 2 Predominant late teens and under-represented late 20s

2 3 Predominant students

3 2 Students and late teens

4 4 Moderate late teens

5 2 Late 20s predominant

6 27 Predominant 30s

7 4 Families with young children

8 10 Families with older children

9 32 1960s baby boom and younger elderly predominant

10 17 Post-war baby boom and older elderly predominant

Outliers 3 Extreme students (Headingley & Hyde Park), City centre

Population pyramids for 10 clusters

• Variables: percents in 5 year ages

• Method: k-means clustering (SPSS)

• Ten cluster solution chosen

• Outliers: Extreme students, City Centre (hostels, new apartment complexes)

Distribution of community area cluster members

• The clusters are distributed as we might expect given previous age group maps

• On balance the household classification gives a better picture of way different ages live together and live apart

Life expectancies at neighbourhood scale

• Life expectancies are the best measures of mortality experienced by a population

• There are difficulties in estimating life expectancies for small populations, for which we propose solutions

• Assuming the solutions are robust, we try to answer the following questions:– What are the life chances of the people of Leeds around 2001?– How do these differ between men and women?– How do they vary across the city?– How do they compare with the national measures?– Have life chances diverged or converged across

neighbourhoods in the last decade?

Method for estimating life expectancies for wards

• Compute three year average mortality rates for England and Wales, 1990-1992 & 2000-2002, using 1991 and 2001 mid-year estimate populations

• Use electoral ward deaths information for 1990-1992 and 2000-2002 for ages 0, 1-4, 5-14, 25-34, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74, 75-84 and 85+

• Multiply the England & Wales quinary mortality rates by the ratio of the observed deaths in the larger age group they are members of divided by the number of deaths in the larger age groups expected from the sum of E & W death rates times the ward quinary age population

• This borrows information from a large population but uses critical information from the small area population

A life table for males, Cookridge ward, Leeds, 2000-02

Ages

x

Mortality Rate

M

Age interval

n

Mortality probability

Q

Survival probability

p

Hypothetical cohort survivors

L

Hypothetical cohort non-survivors

d

Average time to death in interval

a

Life years lived in interval

L

Cumulative life years from birth

T

Life expectancy

e

0 0.003265 1 0.003260 0.996740 100000 326 0.20 99739 7911708 79.12

1-4 0.000000 4 0.000000 1.000000 99674 0 1.50 398696 7811969 78.38

5-9 0.000206 5 0.001028 0.998972 99674 102 2.50 498114 7413273 74.38

: : : : : : : : : :

80-84

0.080508 5 0.335096 0.664904 53490 17924 2.50 222640 556203 10.40

85-89

0.059416 5 0.258658 0.741342 35566 9199 2.50 154831 333563 9.38

90+ 0.147520 1.000000 0.000000 26366 26366 6.78 178732 178732 6.78

The spatial pattern of life expectancies for males, (a) 1990-92 and (b) 2000-02

• Northern and Eastern suburbs favoured

• Spatial pattern very stable over 10 years

• e0 improves 2.68 years for men, 2.50 for women over 10 years

• For England & Wales, over the 10 years men’s e0 rose by 2.57 years and women’s by 1.67 years

Where I board the bus in the morning (Cookridge ward), male life expectancy is 79 years (2000-02)

Where I alight from the bus (University ward), men can expect to live only 71 years.

Summary indicators of life expectancies, Leeds, 1990-92 and 2000-02

• Increases in life expectancies in all wards except one, City & Holbeck fro me (problems of the homeless)

• But inequality has increased on all measures, SD, IQR and range

• Top third of wards saw 3.7 years improvement for men, 3.4 for women

• Bottom third saw only 1.5 years improvement for men and 2.3 for women

Indicator

Male 1990-92

Male 2000-02

Male Change

Female 1990-92

Female 2000-02

Female change

Max 76.1 79.6 3.5 82.8 87.7 4.9

Median 72.7 75.5 2.8 79.3 81.2 1.9

Min 67.9 66.8 -1.1 76.2 77.8 1.6

Range 8.3 12.8 4.5 6.6 9.9 3.1

Inter-quartile range

2.8 5.1 2.3 2.3 2.8 0.5

Top third

74.9 78.6 3.7 80.7 84.1 3.4

Middle third

72.8 75.8 3.0 79.1 80.9 1.8

Bottom third

70.3 71.8 1.5 77.8 80.1 2.3

Estimation of life expectancies for community areas

• Method: regress life expectancy against Townsend deprivation score for 33 wards

• Use equation with Townsend scores for 106 community areas (CAs) to predict life expectancies for community areas

• Adjust the predictions so the weighted sum of CA life expectancies is equal to the ward estimate for life expectancy

• Allows CA life expectancies to vary around their ward means

• Assumes relationship at ward scale holds at CA scale

Neighbourhood life expectancies, 2000-02 and change 1990-92 to 2000-02

• (a) = men, (b) = women

• Poverty and inner city living seriously affect your health

• Poorer communities are gaining less than richer

• Inequality is greater for men than women and it is increasing more for men

Conclusions: Demographic Structures

• The age-sex structure of the Leeds population was very stable between 1991 and 2001, resembling that for the country as whole (except for a greater share in student ages)

• Unusually, the population did not age significantly and there were decreases in the population shares which were female and elderly

• There was a big increase in the student age population and increasing intensity of student occupation of inner North West Leeds

Conclusions: spatial distributions

• The city’s communities are moderately differentiated in terms of household and age structure. Each household type is concentrated in a different section of the city, though all types and all ages are found in all communities.

• Dependency ratios have changed consequent on the changes in age groups both upwards and downwards. The largest shifts upwards have been in selected outer suburbs (ageing in place and out-migration of richer retirees). The largest shifts downwards have been in the student quarter and adjacent neighbourhoods.

Conclusions: life chances

• Life expectancies in Leeds have improved faster than in England and Wales as a whole, particularly for women

• However, men have improved their life chances more than women in all neighbourhoods

• Areas at all socio-economic levels have seen improvements but more at the top than at the bottom, indicating widening inequalities

• One exception is the city centre ward, where homeless men face poorer life chances at the start of the 21st century than they did ten years before