When Does a Cohort's Mortality Differ from What we Might Expect?

For the Ancients, death could be attributed to at least three causes: ageing, temporary vicissitudes and the consequences of an orderly or dissolute life. The Moderns do not diverge much from this view, but can measure these causes with greater precision: senescence is studied at different ages, per...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Population. English selection 1990-01, Vol.2, p.93-126
Main Authors: Wilmoth, John, Vallin, Jacques, Caselli, Graziella
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accidents
Age
Age groups
Causes of death
Death
Etiology
Life tables
Malnutrition
Mortality
World wars
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Summary:For the Ancients, death could be attributed to at least three causes: ageing, temporary vicissitudes and the consequences of an orderly or dissolute life. The Moderns do not diverge much from this view, but can measure these causes with greater precision: senescence is studied at different ages, period effects by year of death, and lifetime experiences by the cohort approach. The next step is to distinguish the action of each of these three causes on the probabilities of death at a given age, at a given time and within a given cohort. This is easier said than done, since the three effects are not independent: any two of them will determine the third. John Wilmoth, Jacques Vallin and Graziella Caselli have developed a statistical procedure which makes it possible to estimate the three effects jointly, thus throwing light on the third--the cohort effect--which is much less known and much more surprising than are age and period effects.
ISSN:1169-1018