These researchers used standard demographic methods to construct abridged period lifetables for Māori and non-Māori in New Zealand from 1951 to 2006. Absolute [standardised rate difference (SRD)] and relative [standardised rate ratio (SRR)] mortality inequalities for Māori compared with European/Other ethnic groups (aged 1–74 years) were measured using the New Zealand Census-Mortality Study (an ongoing data linkage study that links mortality to census records) from 1981–84 to 2001–04. Life expectancy gaps and relative inequalities in mortality rates (aged 1–74 years) widened and then narrowed again, in tandem with changing economic inequalities and changing health inequalities between ethnic groups. Among females, the contribution of cardiovascular disease to absolute mortality inequalities steadily decreased, but was partly offset by an increasing contribution from cancer. Among males, the contribution of cardiovascular disease increased from the early 1980s to the 1990s, then decreased again. The extent of socio-economic mediation of the ethnic mortality inequality peaked in 1991–94, again more notably among males.
