Innovations in Actuarial Mortality Forecasting [before doctoral defense]

Kivonat, rövid leírás

To describe the improvement in overall mortality, Omran (1971) introduced the concept of epidemiological transition. According to him, the process of mortality improvement can be divided into three main stages. In the first stage, the age of pestilence and famine, mortality is characterized by cyclicality and greater fluctuations, with major determinants being epidemics, wars, and famine. In the next stage, the age of receding pandemics, infectious diseases begin to recede and famine ceases. Meanwhile, in the final stage, the age of degenerative and man-made diseases, infectious diseases are completely displaced, and degenerative diseases become the primary cause of death. Analyzing European countries, around 1950 the northern and western countries had significantly better life expectancies than the southern and eastern countries. Over the next two decades, several Southern and Eastern European countries ex-perienced partial convergence. A crisis then emerged in the states belonging to the Soviet Union, leading to stagnation in life expectancy growth and, in some countries, worsening mortality indicators among middle-aged male populations (Meslé and Vallin, 2002). Omran’s original theory was subsequently extended to account for later developments, including the cardiovascular revolution. Vallin and Meslé (2004) developed a theory whose final stage is the fight against ageing and a further increase in life expectancy.