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Issues of Selection in Human Survivorship: A Theory of Mortality Change from the Mid-Eighteenth to the Early Twenty First Century

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Author Info
Hans Oluf Hansen (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)
Abstract

Is variation in empirical mortality across populations consistent with a hypothesis of selec-tion? To examine this proposition an extended frailty mortality model is put forward; incor-porating biological frailty; a common non-parametric hazard, joint for men and women, rep-resenting endogenous mortality in terms of degenerative aging (senescence); and environ-mental influence on survivorship. As the model is fitted to empirical cohort mortality exhibit-ing extreme variation, biological aging is identified up to a multiplicative factor. Mortality of elected cohorts born in Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland during the past 250 years and in Japan any ten years between 1950 and 1990 is approached appropriately by the model. Reduced natural selection may account for a substantial part of the empirical mortality change in the course of the demographic transition. Survivorship in the late nineteenth and the twentieth century ties selection to major medical advances and rapid recent mortality decline, probably with consequences for future health and survivorship.

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File URL: http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/2008/0818.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics in its series Discussion Papers with number 08-18.

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Length: 31 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2008
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Handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:0818

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Related research
Keywords: biodemography; congenital frailty; selection; heterogeneity; cohort mortality; stochastic micro-simulation; longevity;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
C6 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming
C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

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