Mortality and population forecasts

Tim Miller > Mortality and population forecasts

Overview of the code

Mortality rates are forecast using the Lee-Carter method in the Mortality Forecast module. This program contains all the basic methods necessary for estimating and forecasting written in R and S-plus.

Data sources

Annual series of age specific mortality rates by single year of age. We use estimates from the Social Security Administration. Data for the years 1950 to 1995 are accessed via the Berkeley Mortality Database. For the years 1996 to 1999, we use data provided directly by the Social Security Administration as used in the latest (March 2001) Trustees Report. Data for 1999 is preliminary.

Papers

"Assessing the performance of the Lee-Carter approach to modeling and forecasting mortality" by R.D. Lee and T.W. Miller. Paper presented at the 2000 annual meetings of the Population Association of America in Los Angeles.

Related research

The achievement of immortality in the year 2001 would lead to a tripling of the current US population and a more than quadrupling of the current world population by the end of the century. Manuscript on "Immortality and U.S. population size in the 21st century."

Tim Miller | email: tmiller@demog.berkeley.edu | web: www.demog.berkeley.edu/~tmiller