Package 'MortalityLaws'

Title: Parametric Mortality Models, Life Tables and HMD
Description: Fit the most popular human mortality 'laws', and construct full and abridge life tables given various input indices. A mortality law is a parametric function that describes the dying-out process of individuals in a population during a significant portion of their life spans. For a comprehensive review of the most important mortality laws see Tabeau (2001) <doi:10.1007/0-306-47562-6_1>. Practical functions for downloading data from various human mortality databases are provided as well.
Authors: Marius D. Pascariu [aut, cre, cph] (ORCID: <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2568-6489>), Vladimir Canudas-Romo [ctb]
Maintainer: Marius D. Pascariu <[email protected]>
License: MIT + file LICENSE
Version: 2.2.2
Built: 2026-05-07 18:31:01 UTC
Source: https://github.com/mpascariu/mortalitylaws

Help Index


MortalityLaws Test Data

Description

Dataset containing altered death rates (mx), death counts (Dx) and exposures (Ex) for the female population living in England & Wales in four different years: 1850, 1900, 1950 and 2010. This dataset is provided for testing purposes only. Download the actual data free of charge from https://www.mortality.org. Once a username and a password are created on the website, the function ReadHMD can be used for downloading.

Usage

ahmd

Format

An object of class list of length 3.

Source

Human Mortality Database

See Also

ReadHMD

Examples

head(ahmd$mx)

Check Data Availability in HMD

Description

Returns information about the data available in the Human Mortality Database (HMD), including the range of years covered by the life tables for each country or region.

Usage

availableHMD(link = "https://www.mortality.org/Data/DataAvailability")

Arguments

link

URL to the HMD available data. Default: "https://www.mortality.org/Data/DataAvailability"

Value

A tibble.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

ReadHMD

Examples

availableHMD()

Check Available Mortality Laws

Description

The function returns information about the parametric models that can be called and fitted in the MortalityLaw function. For a comprehensive review of the most important mortality laws, Tabeau (2001) is a good starting point.

Usage

availableLaws(law = NULL)

Arguments

law

Optional. Default: NULL. One can extract details about a certain model by specifying its codename.

Value

The output is of the "availableLaws" class with the following components:

table

Table with mortality models and codes to be used in MortalityLaw.

legend

Table with details about the section of the mortality curve.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

References

  1. Gompertz, B. (1825). On the Nature of the Function Expressive of the Law of Human Mortality, and on a New Mode of Determining the Value of Life Contingencies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 115, 513-583.

  2. Makeham, W. (1860). On the Law of Mortality and Construction of Annuity Tables. The Assurance Magazine and Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, 8(6), 301-310. doi:10.1017/S204616580000126X

  3. Thiele, T. (1871). On a Mathematical Formula to express the Rate of Mortality throughout the whole of Life, tested by a Series of Observations made use of by the Danish Life Insurance Company of 1871. Journal of the Institute of Actuaries and Assurance Magazine, 16(5), 313-329. doi:10.1017/S2046167400043688

  4. Oppermann, L. H. F. (1870). On the graduation of life tables, with special application to the rate of mortality in infancy and childhood. The Insurance Record Minutes from a meeting in the Institute of Actuaries, 42.

  5. Wittstein, T. and D. Bumsted. (1883). The Mathematical Law of Mortality. Journal of the Institute of Actuaries and Assurance Magazine, 24(3), 153-173.

  6. Steffensen, J. (1930). Infantile mortality from an actuarial point of view. Skandinavisk Aktuarietidskrift 13, 272-286. doi:10.1080/03461238.1930.10416902

  7. Perks, W. (1932). On Some Experiments in the Graduation of Mortality Statistics. Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, 63(1), 12-57. doi:10.1017/S0020268100046680

  8. Harper, F. S. (1936). An actuarial study of infant mortality. Scandinavian Actuarial Journal 1936 (3-4), 234-270. doi:10.1080/03461238.1936.10405113

  9. Weibull, W. (1951). A statistical distribution function of wide applicability. Journal of applied mechanics 103, 293-297. doi:10.1115/1.4010337

  10. Beard, R. E. (1971). Some aspects of theories of mortality, cause of death analysis, forecasting and stochastic processes. Biological aspects of demography 999, 57-68.

  11. Vaupel, J., Manton, K.G., and Stallard, E. (1979). The impact of heterogeneity in individual frailty on the dynamics of mortality. Demography 16(3): 439-454. doi:10.2307/2061224

  12. Siler, W. (1979), A Competing-Risk Model for Animal Mortality. Ecology, 60: 750-757. doi:10.2307/1936612

  13. Heligman, L., & Pollard, J. (1980). The age pattern of mortality. Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, 107(1), 49-80. doi:10.1017/S0020268100040257

  14. Rogers A and Planck F (1983). MODEL: A General Program for Estimating Parametrized Model Schedules of Fertility, Mortality, Migration, and Marital and Labor Force Status Transitions. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-83-102

  15. Martinelle S. (1987). A generalized Perks formula for old-age mortality. Stockholm, Sweden, Statistiska Centralbyran, 1987. 55 p. (R&D Report, Research-Methods-Development, U/STM No. 38)

  16. Carriere J.F. (1992). Parametric models for life tables. Transactions of the Society of Actuaries. Vol.44

  17. Kostaki A. (1992). A nine-parameter version of the Heligman-Pollard formula. Mathematical Population Studies. Vol. 3 277-288. doi:10.1080/08898489209525346

  18. Thatcher AR, Kannisto V and Vaupel JW (1998). The force of mortality at ages 80 to 120. Odense Monographs on Population Aging Vol. 5, Odense University Press, 1998. 104, 20 p. Odense, Denmark

  19. Tabeau E. (2001). A Review of Demographic Forecasting Models for Mortality. In: Tabeau E., van den Berg Jeths A., Heathcote C. (eds) Forecasting Mortality in Developed Countries. European Studies of Population, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. doi:10.1007/0-306-47562-6_1

  20. Finkelstein M. (2012) Discussing the Strehler-Mildvan model of mortality Demographic Research, Vol. 26(9), 191-206. doi:10.4054/DemRes.2012.26.9

See Also

MortalityLaw

Examples

availableLaws()

Check Available Loss Functions

Description

Returns information about the loss functions implemented for use with the optimisation procedure in the MortalityLaw function.

Usage

availableLF()

Value

A list of class availableLF with the components:

table

Table with loss functions and codes to be used in MortalityLaw.

legend

Table with details about the abbreviation used.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

MortalityLaw

Examples

availableLF()

Convert Life Table Indicators

Description

Easily convert between different life table indicators (e.g., from death rates mx to death probabilities qx, or from survivorship lx to life expectancy ex). The function wraps LifeTable internally, so the conversion relies on the same constant-force-of-mortality (CFM) assumption and life-table methodology used throughout the package.

Usage

convertFx(x, data, from, to, ...)

Arguments

x

Numeric vector of ages at the beginning of each age interval. For a full life table, use single-year ages (e.g., 0:110). For an abridged life table, use the lower bound of each interval (e.g., c(0, 1, 5, 10, ..., 110)).

data

A numeric vector, matrix, or data.frame containing the mortality indicator to be converted. Each row should correspond to an age, each column to a separate population or time period.

from

The type of indicator supplied in data. One of: "mx", "qx", "dx", or "lx".

to

The desired output indicator. One of: "mx", "qx", "dx", "lx", "Lx", "Tx", or "ex".

...

Further arguments passed to LifeTable that may affect the results, such as sex, lx0, or ax.

Details

This function provides a convenient interface for converting a single mortality indicator into another, without having to call LifeTable directly and extract the desired column.

The supported input types (from) are: mx, qx, dx, and lx.

The supported output types (to) are: mx, qx, dx, lx, Lx, Tx, and ex.

There are 28 possible from-to combinations (4 inputs ×\times 7 outputs). All conversions pass through the full life-table computation; for example, converting mx to ex will internally compute qx, lx, dx, Lx, and Tx in sequence.

When data is a vector, the function returns a named vector. When data is a matrix or data.frame with multiple columns, the function applies the conversion column-wise and returns a matrix with the same row and column names as the input.

Value

A numeric vector or matrix containing the converted life table indicator. If the input was a named object, the output retains those names.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

LifeTable for the underlying life-table construction; LawTable for generating life tables from parametric mortality laws.

Examples

# ---- Basic conversions ----

x  <- 0:110
mx <- ahmd$mx

# Convert death rates to death probabilities
qx <- convertFx(x, data = mx, from = "mx", to = "qx")

# Convert death rates to death distribution
dx <- convertFx(x, data = mx, from = "mx", to = "dx")

# Convert death rates to survivorship
lx <- convertFx(x, data = mx, from = "mx", to = "lx")

# ---- All 28 possible conversions ----

from <- c("mx", "qx", "dx", "lx")
to   <- c("mx", "qx", "dx", "lx", "Lx", "Tx", "ex")
K    <- expand.grid(from = from, to = to)

for (i in 1:nrow(K)) {
  In  <- as.character(K[i, "from"])
  Out <- as.character(K[i, "to"])
  N   <- paste0(Out, "_from_", In)
  cat(i, " Create", N, "\n")
  assign(N, convertFx(x = x, data = get(In), from = In, to = Out))
}

Compute Life Tables from Parameters of a Mortality Law

Description

Generate a complete life table directly from the fitted parameters of a parametric mortality model. This function evaluates the mortality law at the given ages and passes the resulting death rates (mx) or death probabilities (qx) to LifeTable for further computation of all standard life-table columns (lx, dx, Lx, Tx, ex, etc.).

Usage

LawTable(x, par, law, sex = NULL, lx0 = 1e+05, ax = NULL)

Arguments

x

Numeric vector of ages at the beginning of each age interval. For a full life table, use single-year ages (e.g., 0:110). For an abridged life table, use the lower bound of each interval (e.g., c(0, 1, 5, 10, ..., 110)).

par

The parameters of the mortality model. Can be:

  • A numeric vector containing the coefficients (for a single life table).

  • A numeric matrix or data.frame where each row corresponds to a separate set of parameters (producing multiple life tables). Column names should match the parameter names of the chosen law.

law

The name of the mortality law to be used (e.g., "gompertz", "makeham"). Run availableLaws to see all options.

sex

Sex of the population. Options are NULL (default), "male", "female", or "total". When specified, the first two entries of the ax column are adjusted using Coale-Demeny coefficients, producing more accurate life-table values at the youngest ages. The adjustment differs slightly between males and females.

lx0

Radix, the starting population (or probability scale) at age 0. Default is 100,000. All subsequent life-table columns (lx, dx, Lx, Tx) are scaled accordingly.

ax

Numeric vector representing the average number of person-years lived in the age interval by those who die in that interval. If NULL (the default), ax is estimated internally using a standard formula. You may supply a single value (applied to all intervals) or a vector of the same length as x. A common assumption is ax = 0.5, which places deaths at the midpoint of each interval.

Details

This function is designed to work with models that have been fitted externally (e.g., via MortalityLaw or by hand). The par argument must contain the estimated coefficients of the mortality law, and law must be one of the valid codes listed by availableLaws.

Important caveat: age scaling during fitting

Several mortality laws (e.g., Gompertz, Makeham) internally scale the age vector during optimisation to ensure numerical stability. If the model was fitted using MortalityLaw over an age range [a, b], the published coefficients correspond to the scaled ages, not the original ages. Consequently, LawTable will only produce valid life tables for ages a\ge a (the lower bound of the fitting range). Attempting to use the same coefficients at younger ages will yield incorrect results (e.g., life expectancy at age 25 will equal that at age 45).

To determine which models apply age scaling, run:

A <- availableLaws()$table
A[, c("CODE", "SCALE_X")]

Models with SCALE_X = TRUE rescale the age vector internally. When using LawTable with such a model, make sure the x argument starts from the same lower age bound used during fitting.

For models that do not scale (e.g., Heligman-Pollard "HP"), this limitation does not apply, and LawTable can be used for any age range.

Value

An object of class "LifeTable" containing the following components:

lt

A data.frame with the complete life table, including columns for age interval (x.int), exact age (x), death rate (mx), death probability (qx), person-years lived by decedents (ax), survivorship (lx), death distribution (dx), person-years lived (Lx), total person-years remaining (Tx), and life expectancy (ex).

call

The matched function call.

process_date

Timestamp of when the life table was computed.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

LifeTable for constructing life tables from raw mortality data; MortalityLaw for fitting parametric mortality models; availableLaws for the list of implemented laws and their scaling behaviour.

Examples

# Example 1 --- Makeham --- multiple life tables from a matrix of parameters

x1 <- 45:100
L1 <- "makeham"
C1 <- matrix(
  c(0.00717, 0.07789, 0.00363,
    0.01018, 0.07229, 0.00001,
    0.00298, 0.09585, 0.00002,
    0.00067, 0.11572, 0.00078),
  nrow = 4,
  dimnames = list(1:4, c("A", "B", "C"))
)

LawTable(x = x1, par = C1, law = L1)

# ---- Important note on age scaling ----

# The Makeham model applies internal age scaling during fitting.
# If the coefficients above were estimated over ages 45-100, the life
# table produced by LawTable is valid only from age 45 onward.

# ---- Example 1B: correct usage ----
LawTable(x = 45:100, par = c(0.00717, 0.07789, 0.00363), law = L1)

# ---- Example 1C: incorrect usage ----
# The code below uses the same coefficients but starts at age 25.
# Because the model was fitted on scaled ages (starting at 45),
# the life table at age 25 will be meaningless (e.g., e25 equals e45).
## Not run: 
LawTable(x = 25:100, par = c(0.00717, 0.07789, 0.00363), law = L1)

## End(Not run)

# ---- How to check which laws apply scaling ----
A <- availableLaws()$table
A[, c("CODE", "SCALE_X")]

# Example 2 --- Heligman-Pollard (no scaling) ---

x2 <- 0:110
L2 <- "HP"
C2 <- c(0.00223, 0.01461, 0.12292, 0.00091,
        2.75201, 29.01877, 0.00002, 1.11411)

LawTable(x = x2, par = C2, law = L2)

# Because "HP" does NOT scale the age vector, the output is valid for
# any starting age. Compare:
LawTable(x = 3:110, par = C2, law = L2)
# Note that e3 = 70.31 in both tables, confirming consistency.

Compute Life Tables from Mortality Data

Description

Construct either a full (single-year age intervals) or an abridged (wider age intervals) life table from a variety of input data types. The function accepts:

  • Death counts and mid-interval population estimates (Dx, Ex)

  • Age-specific death rates (mx)

  • Death probabilities (qx)

  • Survivorship curve (lx)

  • Distribution of deaths (dx)

Only one of these input options needs to be provided; the others are ignored if present. The input can be a numeric vector, matrix, or data.frame. When a matrix or data.frame with multiple columns is supplied, the function computes one life table per column.

Usage

LifeTable(x, Dx = NULL, Ex = NULL,
             mx = NULL,
             qx = NULL,
             lx = NULL,
             dx = NULL,
             sex = NULL,
             lx0 = 1e5,
             ax  = NULL)

Arguments

x

Numeric vector of ages at the beginning of each age interval. For a full life table, use single-year ages (e.g., 0:110). For an abridged life table, use the lower bound of each interval (e.g., c(0, 1, 5, 10, ..., 110)).

Dx

Death counts. Each element represents the total number of deaths during the calendar year to persons aged x to x + n (where n is the length of the age interval). Must be provided together with Ex.

Ex

Exposure-to-risk in the period. This is usually approximated by the mid-year population aged x to x + n. Must be provided together with Dx.

mx

Age-specific death rate in the age interval [x, x+n). Defined as Dx / Ex.

qx

Probability of dying within the age interval [x, x+n).

lx

Probability of surviving to exact age x (if lx0 = 1), or the number of survivors at exact age x (if lx0 > 1). When lx is the sole input, the values are re-scaled to the chosen radix lx0.

dx

Number of deaths in the life-table population occurring in the age interval [x, x+n). When dx is the sole input, the values are re-scaled to sum to lx0.

sex

Sex of the population. Options are NULL (default), "male", "female", or "total". When specified, the first two entries of the ax column are adjusted using Coale-Demeny coefficients, producing more accurate life-table values at the youngest ages. The adjustment differs slightly between males and females.

lx0

Radix, the starting population (or probability scale) at age 0. Default is 100,000. All subsequent life-table columns (lx, dx, Lx, Tx) are scaled accordingly.

ax

Numeric vector representing the average number of person-years lived in the age interval by those who die in that interval. If NULL (the default), ax is estimated internally using a standard formula. You may supply a single value (applied to all intervals) or a vector of the same length as x. A common assumption is ax = 0.5, which places deaths at the midpoint of each interval.

Details

A life table (also called a mortality table or actuarial table) summarises the mortality experience of a population. For each age (or age interval) it reports:

  • Death rates (mx) and death probabilities (qx)

  • Survivorship (lx)

  • Distribution of deaths (dx)

  • Person-years lived (Lx) and total person-years remaining (Tx)

  • Life expectancy (ex)

The life table is constructed sequentially: from the input data the function derives mx, then qx, then lx, dx, Lx, Tx, and finally ex. The constant-force-of-mortality (CFM) assumption is used to convert between mx and qx. If the sex argument is supplied, the first two values of the ax column are adjusted using the Coale-Demeny method, which accounts for the different infant mortality patterns between males and females.

Value

An object of class "LifeTable" containing the following components:

lt

A data.frame with the complete life table, including columns for age interval (x.int), exact age (x), death rate (mx), death probability (qx), person-years lived by decedents (ax), survivorship (lx), death distribution (dx), person-years lived (Lx), total person-years remaining (Tx), and life expectancy (ex).

call

The matched function call.

process_date

Timestamp of when the life table was computed.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

LawTable for generating life tables from a fitted parametric mortality law; convertFx for converting between mortality measures.

Examples

# Example 1 --- Full life tables with different inputs ------------

y  <- 1900
x  <- as.numeric(rownames(ahmd$mx))
Dx <- ahmd$Dx[, paste(y)]
Ex <- ahmd$Ex[, paste(y)]

LT1 <- LifeTable(x, Dx = Dx, Ex = Ex)
LT2 <- LifeTable(x, mx = LT1$lt$mx)
LT3 <- LifeTable(x, qx = LT1$lt$qx)
LT4 <- LifeTable(x, lx = LT1$lt$lx)
LT5 <- LifeTable(x, dx = LT1$lt$dx)

LT1
LT5
ls(LT5)

# Example 2 --- Compute multiple life tables at once ------------

LTs <- LifeTable(x, mx = ahmd$mx)
LTs
# A warning is printed if the input contains missing values.
# Some of the missing values can be handled automatically.

# Example 3 --- Abridged life table -----------------------------

x  <- c(0, 1, seq(5, 110, by = 5))
mx <- c(.053, .005, .001, .0012, .0018, .002, .003, .004,
        .004, .005, .006, .0093, .0129, .019, .031, .049,
        .084, .129, .180, .2354, .3085, .390, .478, .551)
LT6 <- LifeTable(x, mx = mx, sex = "female")
LT6

# Example 4 --- Abridged life table using a custom 'ax' --------
# This example reuses the ages (x) and death rates (mx) from Example 3.
# Note that 'ax' must have the same length as 'x', otherwise an error
# will be returned.

my_ax <- c(0.1, 1.5, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2,
           2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1)

LT7 <- LifeTable(x = x, mx = mx, ax = my_ax)

Fit Mortality Laws

Description

Fit parametric mortality models given a set of input data. The data can be supplied as death counts and mid-interval population estimates (Dx, Ex), age-specific death rates (mx), or death probabilities (qx). Use the law argument to specify the model to be fitted. Over 30 parametric models are currently implemented; run availableLaws to see the full list. Models can be fitted using maximum likelihood or by optimising a loss function. See the availableLF function for the implemented options.

Usage

MortalityLaw(x, Dx = NULL, Ex = NULL, mx = NULL, qx = NULL,
                law = NULL,
                opt.method = "LF2",
                parS = NULL,
                fit.this.x = x,
                custom.law = NULL,
                show = FALSE, ...)

Arguments

x

Numeric vector of ages at the beginning of each age interval. For a full life table, use single-year ages (e.g., 0:110). For an abridged life table, use the lower bound of each interval (e.g., c(0, 1, 5, 10, ..., 110)).

Dx

Death counts. Each element represents the total number of deaths during the calendar year to persons aged x to x + n (where n is the length of the age interval). Must be provided together with Ex.

Ex

Exposure-to-risk in the period. This is usually approximated by the mid-year population aged x to x + n. Must be provided together with Dx.

mx

Age-specific death rate in the age interval [x, x+n). Defined as Dx / Ex.

qx

Probability of dying within the age interval [x, x+n).

law

The name of the mortality law to be used (e.g., "gompertz", "makeham"). Run availableLaws to see all options.

opt.method

The function to optimise. Available options:

  • "poissonL": Poisson log-likelihood.

  • "binomialL": Binomial log-likelihood.

  • "LF1": Squared relative error (1 - mu/nu)^2.

  • "LF2": Squared log-ratio log(mu/nu)^2.

  • "LF3": Chi-squared-type ((nu - mu)^2)/nu.

  • "LF4": Squared error (nu - mu)^2.

  • "LF5": Deviance-type (nu - mu) * log(nu/mu).

  • "LF6": Absolute error abs(nu - mu).

See availableLF for details.

parS

Optional starting parameter values for the optimisation. If NULL, sensible defaults are automatically chosen via bring_parameters.

fit.this.x

A subset of x over which to fit the model. The default is the entire x vector. Use this to exclude, for example, advanced ages where data are sparse.

custom.law

A user-defined function for fitting a model not included in the package. The function must accept arguments x (age vector) and par (named parameter vector) and return a list containing at least an element named hx (the hazard or force of mortality). See the examples below.

show

Logical. If TRUE, a progress bar is displayed during fitting. Default: FALSE.

...

Additional arguments passed to or from other methods.

Details

Optimisation: The PORT routines (via nlminb) are used for unconstrained and box-constrained optimisation. Parameters are estimated on the log scale to ensure positivity, and the routine is set to allow up to 5000 iterations. When the optimisation method is "poissonL" or "binomialL", the AIC, BIC and log-likelihood are computed from the likelihood. Otherwise these are set to NaN.

Scaling of the age vector: For models that cover only a portion of the lifespan (e.g., adult or old-age mortality), the age vector x is automatically re-scaled as x = x - min(x) + 1 before fitting. This transformation improves numerical stability and helps the optimisation algorithm converge, especially when the starting age is far from zero. Models that apply this scaling are flagged with SCALE_X = TRUE in the table returned by availableLaws. When using predict.MortalityLaw or LawTable with such models, the same scaling is applied internally, so predictions remain consistent with the fitted coefficients.

Handling matrix input: If Dx, Ex, mx or qx are provided as matrices (with one column per population or time period), the function iterates over the columns and fits a separate model to each, returning a collection of results.

Value

An object of class "MortalityLaw", which is a list with the following components:

input

List of input arguments, stored for reproducibility.

info

Model information (name, formula, date of fitting).

coefficients

Estimated parameters of the mortality law. A named vector for a single fit, or a matrix for multiple fits.

fitted.values

Fitted hazard rates (or death probabilities) evaluated at the input ages x.

residuals

Deviance residuals, computed as observed minus fitted values.

goodness.of.fit

List or matrix of goodness-of-fit measures: AIC, BIC and log-likelihood (available only for likelihood-based methods).

opt.diagnosis

Object returned by the optimisation routine, useful for checking convergence.

df

Number of parameters and residual degrees of freedom.

deviance

Sum of squared log-residuals, used as a deviance measure.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

availableLaws for a list of all implemented models; availableLF for loss function details; LifeTable for life table construction; ReadHMD for downloading data from the Human Mortality Database.

Examples

# Example 1: Fitting the Makeham model --------------------------
x  <- 45:75
Dx <- ahmd$Dx[paste(x), "1950"]
Ex <- ahmd$Ex[paste(x), "1950"]

M1 <- MortalityLaw(x = x, Dx = Dx, Ex = Ex, law = 'makeham')

M1
ls(M1)
coef(M1)
summary(M1)
fitted(M1)
predict(M1, x = 45:95)
plot(M1)


# Example 2: --------------------------
# We can fit the same model using a different data format
# and a different optimization method.
x  <- 45:75
mx <- ahmd$mx[paste(x), ]
M2 <- MortalityLaw(x = x, mx = mx, law = 'makeham', opt.method = 'LF1')
M2
fitted(M2)
predict(M2, x = 55:90)

# Example 3: --------------------------
# Now let's fit a mortality law that is not defined
# in the package, say a reparameterized Gompertz in
# terms of modal age at death
# hx = b*exp(b*(x-m)) (here b and m are the parameters to be estimated)

# A function with 'x' and 'par' as input has to be defined, which returns
# at least an object called 'hx' (hazard rate).
my_gompertz <- function(x, par = c(b = 0.13, M = 45)){
  hx  <- with(as.list(par), b*exp(b*(x - M)) )
  return(as.list(environment()))
}

M3 <- MortalityLaw(x = x, Dx = Dx, Ex = Ex, custom.law = my_gompertz)
summary(M3)
# predict M3 for different ages
predict(M3, x = 85:130)


# Example 4: --------------------------
# Fit Heligman-Pollard model for a single
# year in the dataset between age 0 and 100 and build a life table.

x  <- 0:100
mx <- ahmd$mx[paste(x), "1950"] # select data
M4 <- MortalityLaw(x = x, mx = mx, law = 'HP', opt.method = 'LF2')
M4
plot(M4)

LifeTable(x = x, qx = fitted(M4))

MortalityLaws: Parametric Mortality Models, Life Tables and HMD

Description

Fit the most popular human mortality 'laws', and construct full and abridge life tables given various input indices. A mortality law is a parametric function that describes the dying-out process of individuals in a population during a significant portion of their life spans. For a comprehensive review of the most important mortality laws see Tabeau (2001) doi:10.1007/0-306-47562-6_1. Practical functions for downloading data from various human mortality databases are provided as well.

Details

To learn more about the package, start with the vignettes: browseVignettes(package = "MortalityLaws")

Author(s)

Maintainer: Marius D. Pascariu [email protected] (ORCID) [copyright holder]

Other contributors:

  • Vladimir Canudas-Romo [contributor]

See Also

Useful links:


Plot Method for MortalityLaw

Description

Plot Method for MortalityLaw

Usage

## S3 method for class 'MortalityLaw'
plot(x, ...)

Arguments

x

An object of class "MortalityLaw".

...

Further arguments passed to graphical methods, such as parameters (see par).

Value

A plot is generated as a side effect.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

MortalityLaw

Examples

# See complete example in MortalityLaw help page

Predict function for MortalityLaw

Description

Predict function for MortalityLaw

Usage

## S3 method for class 'MortalityLaw'
predict(object, x, ...)

Arguments

object

An object of class "MortalityLaw"

x

Vector of ages to be considered in prediction

...

Additional arguments affecting the predictions produced.

Value

A vector of predicted hazard rates

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

MortalityLaw

Examples

# Extrapolate old-age mortality with the Kannisto model
# Fit ages 80-94 and extrapolate up to 120.

Mx <- ahmd$mx[paste(80:94), "1950"]
M1 <- MortalityLaw(x = 80:94, mx  = Mx, law = 'kannisto')
fitted(M1)
predict(M1, x = 80:120)

# See more examples in MortalityLaw function help page.

Download the Australian Human Mortality Database (AHMD)

Description

Download detailed mortality and population data for different provinces and territories in Australia, in a single object from the Australian Human Mortality Database.

Usage

ReadAHMD(what, regions = NULL, interval = "1x1", save = FALSE, show = TRUE)

Arguments

what

What type of data are you looking for? The following options might be available for some or all the countries and regions:

  • "births" – birth records;

  • "Dx_lexis" – deaths by Lexis triangles;

  • "Ex_lexis" – exposure-to-risk by Lexis triangles;

  • "population" – population size;

  • "Dx" – death counts;

  • "Ex" – exposure-to-risk;

  • "mx" – central death-rates;

  • "LT_f" – period life tables for females;

  • "LT_m" – period life tables for males;

  • "LT_t" – period life tables both sexes combined;

  • "e0" – period life expectancy at birth;

  • "Exc" – cohort exposures;

  • "mxc" – cohort death-rates;

  • "LT_fc" – cohort life tables for females;

  • "LT_mc" – cohort life tables for males;

  • "LT_tc" – cohort life tables both sexes combined;

  • "e0c" – cohort life expectancy at birth;

regions

Specify the region specific data you want to download by adding the AHMD region code/s. Options:

  • "ACT" – Australian Capital Territory;

  • "NSW" – New South Wales;

  • "NT" – Northern Territory;

  • "QLD" – Queensland;

  • "SA" – South Australia;

  • "TAS" – Tasmania;

  • "VIC" – Victoria;

  • "WA" – Western Australia;

  • NULL – if NULL data for all the regions are downloaded.

interval

Datasets are given in various age and time formats based on which the records are aggregated. Interval options:

  • "1x1" – by age and year;

  • "1x5" – by age and 5-year time interval;

  • "1x10" – by age and 10-year time interval;

  • "5x1" – by 5-year age group and year;

  • "5x5" – by 5-year age group and 5-year time interval;

  • "5x10" –by 5-year age group and 10-year time interval.

save

Do you want to save a copy of the dataset on your local machine? Logical. Default: FALSE.

show

Choose whether to display a progress bar. Logical. Default: TRUE.

Details

(Description taken from the AHMD website).

The Australian Human Mortality Database (AHMD) was created to provide detailed Australian mortality and population data to researchers, students, journalists, policy analysts, and others interested in the history of human longevity. The project is an achievement of the Mortality, Ageing & Health research team in the ANU School of Demography under the supervision of Associate Professor Vladimir Canudas-Romo, in collaboration with demographers at the Max Plank Institute for Demographic Research (Rostock, Germany) and the Department of Demography, University of California at Berkeley.

The AHMD is a "satellite" of the Human Mortality Database (HMD), an international database which currently holds detailed data for multiple countries or regions. Consequently, the AHMD's underlying methodology corresponds to the one used for the HMD.

The AHMD gathers all required data (deaths counts, births counts, population size, exposure-to-risk, death rates) to compute life tables for Australia, its states and its territories. One of the great advantages of the database is to include data that is validated and corrected, when required, and rendered comparable, if possible, for the period ranging from 1971 thru 2016. For comparison purposes, various life tables published by governmental organizations are also available for download in PDF format.

Value

A ReadAHMD object that contains:

input

List with the input values;

data

Data downloaded from AHMD;

download.date

Time stamp;

years

Numerical vector with the years covered in the data;

ages

Numerical vector with ages covered in the data.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

ReadHMD ReadCHMD

Examples

# Download demographic data for Australian Capital Territory and
# Tasmania regions in 5x1 format

# Death counts. We don't want to export data outside R.
AHMD_Dx <- ReadAHMD(what = "Dx",
                    regions = c('ACT', 'TAS'),
                    interval  = "5x1",
                    save = FALSE)
AHMD_Dx

# Download life tables for female population in all the states and export data.
LTF <- ReadAHMD(what = "LT_f", interval  = "5x1", save = FALSE)
LTF

Download the Canadian Human Mortality Database (CHMD)

Description

Download detailed mortality and population data for different provinces and territories in Canada, in a single object from the Canadian Human Mortality Database.

Usage

ReadCHMD(what, regions = NULL, interval = "1x1", save = FALSE, show = TRUE)

Arguments

what

What type of data are you looking for? The following options are available:

  • "births" – birth records;

  • "Dx_lexis" – deaths by Lexis triangles;

  • "population" – population size;

  • "Dx" – death counts;

  • "Ex" – exposure-to-risk;

  • "mx" – central death-rates;

  • "LT_f" – period life tables for females;

  • "LT_m" – period life tables for males;

  • "LT_t" – period life tables both sexes combined;

  • "e0" – period life expectancy at birth;

regions

Specify the region specific data you want to download by adding the CHMD region code/s. Options:

  • "CAN" – Canada - Sum of Canadian provinces and territories;

  • "NFL" – Newfoundland & Labrador;

  • "PEI" – Prince Edward Island;

  • "NSC" – Nova Scotia;

  • "NBR" – New Brunswick;

  • "QUE" – Quebec;

  • "ONT" – Ontario;

  • "MAN" – Manitoba;

  • "SAS" – Saskatchewan;

  • "ALB" – Alberta;

  • "BCO" – British Columbia;

  • "NWT" – Northwest Territories & Nunavut;

  • "YUK" – Yukon;

  • NULL – if NULL data for all the regions are downloaded.

interval

Datasets are given in various age and time formats based on which the records are aggregated. Interval options:

  • "1x1" – by age and year;

  • "1x5" – by age and 5-year time interval;

  • "1x10" – by age and 10-year time interval;

  • "5x1" – by 5-year age group and year;

  • "5x5" – by 5-year age group and 5-year time interval;

  • "5x10" –by 5-year age group and 10-year time interval.

save

Do you want to save a copy of the dataset on your local machine? Logical. Default: FALSE.

show

Choose whether to display a progress bar. Logical. Default: TRUE.

Details

(Description taken from the CHMD website).

The Canadian Human Mortality Database (CHMD) was created to provide detailed Canadian mortality and population data to researchers, students, journalists, policy analysts, and others interested in the history of human longevity. The project is an achievement of the Mortality and Longevity research team at the Department of Demography, Universite de Montreal, under the supervision of Professor Robert Bourbeau, in collaboration with demographers at the Max Plank Institute for Demographic Research (Rostock, Germany) and the Department of Demography, University of California at Berkeley. Nadine Ouellette, researcher at the Institut national d'etudes demographiques in Paris and member of the Mortality and Longevity research team at the Universite de Montreal, is in charge of computing all CHMD life tables and updating the CHMD web site.

The CHMD is a "satellite" of the Human Mortality Database (HMD), an international database which currently holds detailed data for multiple countries or regions. Consequently, the CHMD's underlying methodology corresponds to the one used for the HMD.

The CHMD gathers all required data (deaths counts, births counts, population size, exposure-to-risk, death rates) to compute life tables for Canada, its provinces and its territories. One of the great advantages of the database is to include data that is validated and corrected, when required, and rendered comparable, if possible, for the period ranging from 1921 thru 2011. For comparison purposes, various life tables published by governmental organizations are also available for download in PDF format.

Value

A ReadCHMD object that contains:

input

List with the input values;

data

Data downloaded from CHMD;

download.date

Time stamp;

years

Numerical vector with the years covered in the data;

ages

Numerical vector with ages covered in the data.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

ReadHMD ReadAHMD

Examples

# Download demographic data for Quebec and Saskatchewan regions in 1x1 format

# Death counts. We don't want to export data outside R.
CHMD_Dx <- ReadCHMD(what = "Dx",
                    regions = c('QUE', 'SAS'),
                    interval  = "1x1",
                    save = FALSE)

# Download life tables for female population. To export data use save = TRUE.
LTF <- ReadCHMD(what = "LT_f",
                regions = c('QUE', 'SAS'),
                interval  = "1x1",
                save = FALSE)

Download The Human Mortality Database (HMD)

Description

Download detailed mortality and population data for different countries and regions in a single object from the Human Mortality Database.

Usage

ReadHMD(
  what,
  countries = NULL,
  interval = "1x1",
  username,
  password,
  save = FALSE,
  show = TRUE
)

Arguments

what

What type of data are you looking for? The following options might be available for some or all the countries and regions:

  • "births" – birth records;

  • "Dx_lexis" – deaths by Lexis triangles;

  • "Ex_lexis" – exposure-to-risk by Lexis triangles;

  • "population" – population size;

  • "Dx" – death counts;

  • "Ex" – exposure-to-risk;

  • "mx" – central death-rates;

  • "LT_f" – period life tables for females;

  • "LT_m" – period life tables for males;

  • "LT_t" – period life tables both sexes combined;

  • "e0" – period life expectancy at birth;

  • "Exc" – cohort exposures;

  • "mxc" – cohort death-rates;

  • "LT_fc" – cohort life tables for females;

  • "LT_mc" – cohort life tables for males;

  • "LT_tc" – cohort life tables both sexes combined;

  • "e0c" – cohort life expectancy at birth;

countries

Specify the country data you want to download by adding the HMD country code/s. Options: "AUS" "AUT", "BEL", "BGR", "BLR", "CAN", "CHL", "HRV", "HKG", "CHE", "CZE", "DEUTNP", "DEUTE", "DEUTW", "DNK", "ESP", "EST", "FIN", "FRATNP","FRACNP", "GRC", "HUN", "IRL", "ISL" "ISR", "ITA", "JPN", "KOR", "LTU", "LUX", "LVA", "NLD", "NOR", "NZL_NP", "NZL_MA" "NZL_NM", "POL", "PRT" "RUS", "SVK", "SVN", "SWE", "TWN", "UKR", "GBR_NP","GBRTENW","GBRCENW","GBR_SCO", "GBR_NIR","USA". If NULL data for all the countries are downloaded at once;

interval

Datasets are given in various age and time formats based on which the records are aggregated. Interval options:

  • "1x1" – by age and year;

  • "1x5" – by age and 5-year time interval;

  • "1x10" – by age and 10-year time interval;

  • "5x1" – by 5-year age group and year;

  • "5x5" – by 5-year age group and 5-year time interval;

  • "5x10" –by 5-year age group and 10-year time interval.

username

Your HMD username. If you don't have one you can sign up for free on the Human Mortality Database website.

password

Your HMD password.

save

Do you want to save a copy of the dataset on your local machine? Logical. Default: FALSE.

show

Choose whether to display a progress bar. Logical. Default: TRUE.

Details

The Human Mortality Database (HMD) was created to provide detailed mortality and population data to researchers, students, journalists, policy analysts, and others interested in the history of human longevity. The project began as an outgrowth of earlier projects in the Department of Demography at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany (see history). It is the work of two teams of researchers in the USA and Germany (see research teams), with the help of financial backers and scientific collaborators from around the world (see acknowledgements). The Center on the Economics and Development of Aging (CEDA) French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) has also supported the further development of the database in recent years.

Value

A ReadHMD object that contains:

input

List with the input values (except the password).

data

Data downloaded from HMD.

download.date

Time stamp.

years

Numerical vector with the years covered in the data.

ages

Numerical vector with ages covered in the data.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

Examples

## Not run: 


# Download demographic data for 3 countries in 1x1 format
age_int  <- 1  # age interval: 1,5
year_int <- 1  # year interval: 1,5,10
interval <- paste0(age_int, "x", year_int)  # --> 1x1
# And the 3 countries: Sweden Denmark and USA. We have to use the HMD codes
cntr  <- c('SWE', 'DNK', 'USA')

# Download death counts. We don't want to export data outside R.
HMD_Dx <- ReadHMD(what = "Dx",
                  countries = cntr,
                  interval  = interval,
                  username  = "[email protected]",
                  password  = "password",
                  save = FALSE)
HMD_Dx

# Download life tables for female population and export data.
LTF <- ReadHMD(what = "LT_f",
               countries = cntr,
               interval  = interval,
               username  = "[email protected]",
               password  = "password",
               save = TRUE)
LTF

## End(Not run)

Download the Japanese Mortality Database (JMD)

Description

Download detailed mortality and population data of the 47 prefectures in Japan, in a single object. The source of data is the Japanese Mortality Database.

Usage

ReadJMD(what, regions = NULL, interval = "1x1", save = FALSE, show = TRUE)

Arguments

what

What type of data are you looking for? The following options might be available for some or all the countries and regions:

  • "births" – birth records;

  • "Dx_lexis" – deaths by Lexis triangles;

  • "Ex_lexis" – exposure-to-risk by Lexis triangles;

  • "population" – population size;

  • "Dx" – death counts;

  • "Ex" – exposure-to-risk;

  • "mx" – central death-rates;

  • "LT_f" – period life tables for females;

  • "LT_m" – period life tables for males;

  • "LT_t" – period life tables both sexes combined;

  • "e0" – period life expectancy at birth;

  • "Exc" – cohort exposures;

  • "mxc" – cohort death-rates;

  • "LT_fc" – cohort life tables for females;

  • "LT_mc" – cohort life tables for males;

  • "LT_tc" – cohort life tables both sexes combined;

  • "e0c" – cohort life expectancy at birth;

regions

Specify the region specific data you want to download by adding the JMD region code/s. Options: "Japan", "Hokkaido", "Aomori", "Iwate", "Miyagi","Akita", "Yamagata", "Fukushima", "Ibaraki", "Tochigi", "Gunma", "Saitama", "Chiba", "Tokyo", "Kanagawa", "Niigata", "Toyama", "Ishikawa", "Fukui", "Yamanashi", "Nagano", "Gifu", "Shizuoka","Aichi", "Mie", "Shiga", "Kyoto", "Osaka", "Hyogo", "Nara", "Wakayama", "Tottori", "Shimane", "Okayama", "Hiroshima", "Yamaguchi", "Tokushima", "Kagawa", "Ehime", "Kochi", "Fukuoka", "Saga", "Nagasaki", "Kumamoto", "Oita", "Miyazaki", "Kagoshima", "Okinawa". If NULL data for all the regions are downloaded at once.

interval

Datasets are given in various age and time formats based on which the records are aggregated. Interval options:

  • "1x1" – by age and year;

  • "1x5" – by age and 5-year time interval;

  • "1x10" – by age and 10-year time interval;

  • "5x1" – by 5-year age group and year;

  • "5x5" – by 5-year age group and 5-year time interval;

  • "5x10" –by 5-year age group and 10-year time interval.

save

Do you want to save a copy of the dataset on your local machine? Logical. Default: FALSE.

show

Choose whether to display a progress bar. Logical. Default: TRUE.

Details

(Description taken from the JMD website).

The Japanese Mortality Database is a comprehensively-reorganized mortality database that is optimized for mortality research and consistent with the Human Mortality Database. This database is provided as a part of the research project "Demographic research on the causes and the socio-economic consequence of longetivity extension in Japan" (2011-2013), "Demographic research on longevity extension, population aging, and their effects on the social security and socio-economic structures in Japan" (2014-2016), and "Comprehensive research from a demographic viewpoint on the longevity revolution" (2017-2019) at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

The Japanese Mortality Database is designed to provide the life tables to all the people who are interested in Japanese mortality including domestic and foreign mortality researchers for the purpose of mortality research. Especially because we have structured it to conform with the HMD, our database is suitable for international comparison, we put emphasis on the compatibility with the HMD more than our country's particular characteristics. Therefore, the life tables by JMD do not necessarily exhibit the same values as ones by the official life tables prepared and released by the Statistics and Information Department, Minister's Secretariat, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare according to the different base population or the methods for estimating the tables. When doing things other than mortality research, if life table that statistically displays our country's mortality situation is necessary, please use the official life table that has been prepared by the Statistics and Information Department, Minister's Secretariat, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

At the present time, we offer the data for All Japan and by prefecture. The project team is studying the methodology for estimating life tables along with data preparation. Therefore, the data may be updated when a new methodology is adopted. Please refer to "Methods" for further information.

Value

A ReadJMD object that contains:

input

List with the input values;

data

Data downloaded from JMD;

download.date

Time stamp;

years

Numerical vector with the years covered in the data;

ages

Numerical vector with ages covered in the data.

Author(s)

Marius D. Pascariu

See Also

ReadHMD ReadCHMD

Examples

# Download demographic data for Fukushima and Tokyo regions in 1x1 format

# Death counts. We don't want to export data outside R.
JMD_Dx <- ReadJMD(what = "Dx",
                  regions = c('Fukushima', 'Tokyo'),
                  interval  = "1x1",
                  save = FALSE)
JMD_Dx

# Download life tables for female population in all the states and export data.
LTF <- ReadJMD(what = "LT_f", interval  = "5x5", save = FALSE)
LTF