Life expectancy is a key indicator of the quality of public administration and at the same time one of the goals of the national development. In conditions of limited budgetary resources and significant territorial differentiation of the socio-economic development of Russian regions, it becomes critically important to assess the effectiveness of the transformation of available regional resources into an increase in life expectancy. The pandemic crisis of 2020–2021 has actualized the need to identify sustainable models for increasing life expectancy in regions that demonstrate best management practices in the face of external shocks. Thus, the aim of the study is to assess the relative effectiveness of 79 regions of the Russian Federation in achieving high life expectancy over the period 2005–2023, to typologize them according to productivity dynamics and identify key trajectories of change. Using the DEA (Data Envelope Analysis) method, the relative efficiency coefficients of the regions were calculated; then, using the Malmquist index, the temporal dynamics was analyzed with a decomposition into a component of changes in efficiency and technological progress. It was revealed that 83.5% of regions are characterized by a simultaneous improvement in efficiency and technology, however, 16.5% of regions showed a decrease in efficiency with technological progress. We established that the long-term growth in life expectancy is due not only to the volume of resources, but also to the quality of management, a balance between the efficiency of using determinants and technological development, which determines the need for a differentiated demographic policy to ensure a sustainable increase in life expectancy throughout the country
Keywords
life expectancy, DEA analysis, efficiency, region, Malmquist index, regional policy, typology of regions