Description: This paper is the final report in a project commissioned by the Society of Actuaries Social Security Committee. The paper considers a variety of possible risk classification factors that could be used in estimating the value of any mortality based benefit for retirees. As many countries consider mandatory individual retirement accounts as their answer to a secure Social Security system, the question arises as to whether all workers can get true 'market value' annuities when they retire. It is clear today that private sector life annuities are priced assuming that the applicant is healthy-very healthy. Very little underwriting or risk classification now exists in the individual annuity marketplace. This paper reviews 45 recent research papers that look at factors that affect mortality after retirement. In particular, factors that seem to be important in predicting retirement mortality include: age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, income, occupation, marital status, religion, health behaviors, smoking, alcohol, and obesity. For each factor, this paper gives highlights relative to the named factor of the impact expected from that variable as described in the 45 reviewed research papers.

Description: This paper was motivated in part by a desire to use, in a variety of classroom situations, some of the readily available statistics on mortality and related factors. A second aim was to illustrate certain statistical ideas, such as the relative merits of means and medians. However, the subject of racial differentials in mortality rates is of considerable intrinsic interest, which the analysis presented here only begins to address.

Description: This study provides statistical indications of trends in mortality at ages 10 through 34 for both males and females in Canada. Causes of death, with emphasis on suicide and accidental death rates, are explored.