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A universal pattern of mortality decline in the G7 countries

Nature volume 405, pages 789–792 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Human lifespan has increased enormously this century1,2,3. But we remain uncertain about the forces that reduce mortality, and about the cost implications of ageing populations4,5 and their associated social burden. The poor understanding of the factors driving mortality decline2,6,7, and the difficulty of forecasting mortality8,9,10,11 are due in part to the pronounced irregularity of annual to decadal mortality change7,12. Here we examine mortality over five decades in the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US). In every country over this period, mortality at each age has declined exponentially at a roughly constant rate. This trend places a constraint on any theory of society-driven mortality decline, and provides a basis for stochastic mortality forecasting. We find that median forecasts of life expectancy are substantially larger than in existing official forecasts. In terms of the costs of ageing, we forecast values of the dependency ratio (that is, the ratio of people over 65 to working people) in 2050 that are between 6% (UK) and 40% (Japan) higher than official forecasts.

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Figure 1: Dominant temporal patterns in the decline of mortality.
Figure 2: Forecasts of e0, the expectation of life corresponding to mortality rates for each year from 1995 to 2050.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Anderson, R. Lee and K. Wachter for comments. This work was supported by the US National Institute of Aging and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (S.T.).

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  1. Mountain View Research, 2251 Grant Road,, Los Altos, 94204, California, USA

    Shripad Tuljapurkar, Nan Li & Carl Boe

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  1. Shripad Tuljapurkar
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Correspondence to Shripad Tuljapurkar.

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Tuljapurkar, S., Li, N. & Boe, C. A universal pattern of mortality decline in the G7 countries. Nature 405, 789–792 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35015561

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