Recent Multimorbidity Trends in Catalonia: Are Younger Generations Ageing Worse?

In recent decades and on a global scale, there has been an impressive increase in life expectancy. The Spanish experience has been especially striking. After starting from a disadvantage after the calamities of the Civil War, Spain presently rates as one of the countries with the longest life expectancy in the world. To be more specific, in 1940, life expectancy in Spain barely reached fifty years, and by 2025, the figure stabilised at about 84 years, which is only surpassed by a few countries like Switzerland, Japan, and South Korea. This issue of Perspectives Demogràfiques, produced by researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Center for Demographic Studies and the Pompeu Fabra University, explores one of the major challenges associated with increased longevity. To what extent have improved prospects of survival come together with lesser or greater morbidity? In particular, we analyse multimorbidity trends (which is to say, the presence of several chronic ailments in one person) among members of the different cohorts in Catalonia in recent years. The results suggest that, despite increased life expectancy, the rate of accumulation of chronic diseases tends to move faster in younger generations. We attempt to explain this apparently paradoxical result (with important implications for health and care systems) by studying the evolution of mortality risk among the multimorbid population.