A review of life expectancies at birth for Saudi Arabia, 2010–16: A research note

Abstract

Saudi Arabia is centrally located in the Middle East. It is the largest Middle Eastern country, with the largest economy. In 2015, its population size was 31.4 million, the fifth-largest in the Middle East but the largest in the Arabian Gulf. While the economy was previously strongly oil-based, decreases in oil prices have resulted in a change in Saudi Arabia’s strategy, to reduce dependency on oil. For this reason, Saudi Arabia launched a very bold vision in April 2016, called “Vision 2030,” in which health and other economic and development goals were outlined together with strategies on how to achieve them (KSA 2016). Evaluating the achievements of the health goals for the Saudi Arabian vision for 2030 requires a strong empirical basis. Otherwise, gains would not be accurately measured nor easily detected, leading to frustrations that program goals are not being met. This calls for the choice of an appropriate KPI to be used for monitoring the gains made. One of the important summary indicators of health status is life expectancy at birth. This indicator is widely used for goal-setting and is included in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and in the calculation of the Human Development Index. The life expectancy at birth indicator is also mentioned in the “Vision 2030,” and expected targets have been defined. Before measuring gains in life expectancy, we first need to agree on a reference point. The question posed in this paper is “How accurate are the baseline values of life expectancy at birth in Saudi Arabia?” The second question, which follows by implication, is “How accurate are the life tables from which life expectancies at birth are derived?” Relatively accurate national life tables are obtained under three conditions: (1) when registration of deaths is complete; (2) when the year under consideration is a census year; and (3) when the age reporting is good. Inaccuracies are introduced into the life tables as one departs from any one or more of these crucial pivots. For non-census years (intercensal or postcensal) there is a need for accurate estimation of the population by age and sex for accurate life tables to be constructed. Methods for obtaining population estimates for non-census years are summarized in Appendix 1. When the registration of deaths is complete, which reflects the relative functioning of the civil registration/vital statistics (CR/VS) system, the production of a period life table is fairly straightforward. It only needs deaths data broken down by age and gender, and additional information on population, also by age and gender. These are used to calculate age-specific death rates separately for males and females. The life table model assumes that these computed age-specific death rates remain fixed, and they are used to compute hypothetical life table values (e.g., life expectancy at birth) through a set of well-established formulae. As such, the life table measure, life expectancy at birth, is years expected to be lived if the population under study experienced these observed age-specific death rates. When there is a functional CR/VS system and death registration is relatively high but incomplete or over-complete, the percentage incompleteness or overcompleteness can be estimated and used to adjust the registered deaths data, which are subsequently used to obtain the life tables. This is where the “objective science” in life table construction ends. When the completeness of death registration is low or is unknown, life tables are constructed using other sources of data—for example, census or survey data—through the use of indirect techniques of demographic estimation and modelling. This is an area of “subjective science” in which there is some latitude for disagreement.