Description: Demography is a very exciting subject. With a simple mathematical model, students can project a country's population forward 25, 59, 75 even 100 years. This paper will focus on six ideas from demography. They all can be useful to an actuary, yet none of them would be considered at any length if the actuary didn’t study demography.

Description: With a reference to Malthus, this paper notes that the main constraint on human population in the foreseeable future is cultivable land for food agriculture. The author proposes a solution involving the use of land that is currently desert, using desalination and solar power a plan which he demonstrates can be sustainable and profitable.

Description: Examines the link between population structure and asset values by generating returns on assets in the presence of demographic change using an OLG Model.

Description: The purpose of this document is to provide information regarding the specifications of the model to be produced in connection with the project, Population Aging, Implications for Asset Values, and Impact for Pension Plans: An International Study. The authors are seeking input from actuaries and others interested in this work.

Description: Explores how blended families are different and the same. Provides survey data on how people feel about responsibility in different types of families. Provides stories of experience.

Description: The percentage of the population who are obese has grown dramatically worldwide over the last several decades, although stabilizing recently in the United States. Studies have found the effects on mortality to be inconsistent and controversial because of methodological differences and the complexity of the relationship between obesity and mortality. This paper discusses this relationship and sheds light on the likely effects of this epidemic. Issues associated with the so-called obesity-mortality paradox, where mortality experience is lower for those individuals who are overweight and in some who are obese compared with the mortality of those in the normal weight category, are examined. Although certain recently reported studies of the relationship between mortality and obesity indicate that obesity is related to a reduced percent of additional mortality, this may in part be due to the shorter average time that those currently obese have been exposed to their condition. Nevertheless, the amount of health care costs and rates of disability associated with being obese are significant, contributing to the increase in overall health care costs as they become more numerous and age. Although obesity is being addressed with a great deal of activity and publicity, they will continue to prove challenging for individuals and society to manage and overcome.

Description: This article summarizes the meeting of actuaries and demographers at Harvard University Nov. 29-Dec. 1, 1973 to discuss demographic projections and related actuarial topics.

Description: Identifies current trends and considerations when setting the mortality improvement assumption for individual life insurance in the US.

Description: Presented at October 1985 Annual Meeting. Discusses how much of the sex mortality differential is due to smoking habits, how convincing are existing studies, what do worldwide trends in mortality suggest about the effects of smoking and on mortality, how well do insurers classify the smoking risk, and the United States Life Tables for 1979-81 paper by Myers and Bayo.

Description: Panel session discussion of how universal access, quality of care, and controlling health care costs are being addressed in Latin American countries.