Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-tbj44 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T00:18:49.084Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mortality Models and Their Uses in Demography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2014

W. Brass
W. Brass
Affiliation:
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Get access

Synopsis

The search for functions which describe how mortality varies with age is an old one. Over the past two decades demographers have developed model life tables based on the structure of relations among mortalities in different populations rather than explicit expressions of age. The earlier work was analytic and empirical using techniques of statistical regression but more recently functional models have been constructed. These developments are described with particular concentration on the logit relation families of curves.

Some uses of the model life tables in demography are examined such as mortality projections, the dynamics of age structure and estimation from the limited data of developing countries. The implications of the logit system for certain of the “classic” speculations are considered—the span of life, whether a generation carries its own mortality with it and the accumulation of the unhealthy at older ages with saving of life at the younger.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Faculty of Actuaries , Volume 33 , 1971 , pp. 123 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1.Benjamin, B. (1964). Demographic aspects of ageing with special reference to England and Wales. J.I.A. 90, 211–353.Google Scholar
2.Brass, W. (1969). A generation method for projecting death rates, in Population Growth and the Brain Drain, 75-91, edited by Bechofer, F.. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
3.Brass, W. (1971). On the Scale of Mortality, in Biological Aspects of Dermography. Symposia of the Society for the Study of Human Biology, Vol. X. London: Taylor and Francis, Ltd.Google Scholar
4.Brass, W. (1972). Mortality Estimation by Indirect Means, Expert Group Meeting on Mortality, UNESOB, Beirut, December 1972.Google Scholar
5.Carrier, N. H. and Hobcraft, J. N. (1971). Demographic Estimation for Developing Societies. London: Population Investigation Committee.Google Scholar
6.Coale, A. J. and Demeny, P. (1966). Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations. Now Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
7.Fisher, R. A. and Yates, F. (1963). Statistical Tables for Biological, Agricultural and Medical Research, 6th Edition. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd.Google Scholar
8.Kermack, W. O., McKendrick, A.G and McKinlay, P.L. (1934). Death Rates in Great Britain and Sweden. Lancet 1, 698–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9.Ledermann, S. and Breas, J. (1959). Les dimensions de la mortalité. Population, Paris. 14th year (4), 637–682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.Ledermann, S. (1969). Nourelles Tables-Types de Mortalité (Cahier No. 53 de l'Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
11.Pearson, K. (1948). Karl Pearson's Early Statistical Papers. CambridgeUniversity Press.Google Scholar
12.United Nations (1955). Age and Sex Patterns of Mortality: Modal Life Tables for Underdeveloped Countries. New York.Google Scholar
13.United Nations (1962). Factor analysis and sex-age-specific death rates: a contribution to the study of the dimensions of mortality. Popul. Bull. U.N. No. 6, 147–201.Google Scholar
14.United Nations Population Division (1970). World Population Prospects, 1965-2000, As Assessed in 1968. Working Paper No. 37, United Nations, New York.Google Scholar