Description: Demographers have typically viewed mortality trends from historical and cross-national perspectives, looking at commonalities in the evolution of mortality. In general, with improving economic conditions mortality has tended to decline and life expectancies to rise. The epidemiological transition from a mortality pattern dominated by infectious diseases to one in which more endogenous causes of death predominate is a central theme.

Description: Presented at Living to 100 Symposium, January 2002. This paper is a first attempt to assess which group of mortality trajectories proposed by various researchers is confirmed by empirical data between the age of 110 and 115 years when the exponential trajectories on the one hand and the logistic or quadratic trajectories on the other hand have diverged sufficiently.

Description: Paper presented at Living to 100 symposium January 2002. Study describes the increase in life expectancy at birth in Japan, the emergence of centenarians, the trends in the number of deaths of centenarians, and the increase in maximum reported age at death. Death rates above the age of 100 in Japan since 1963 are computed and analyzed. This study completes and updates results presented in a previous study Robine and Saito, 200X.

Description: Experts' discussion of data sources, quality, and analysis. From 2005 Living to 100 and Beyond Monograph, M-LI05-1.

Description: The abstract for the paper Seasons and Longevity: Mortality Trajectories among the Oldest Old.

Description: Mortality in general, and especially amongst the oldest old, is known to be partially shaped by seasons: winter is classically characterized by excess mortality. We therefore put forward the use of season-related life tables to study the mortality trajectories of the oldest old. This approach can be used to explore the plasticity of longevity, by opposing winter and summer trajectories. Furthermore, summerrelated life tables summarize the best conditions of mortality, i.e., the lowest values and the least fluctuating pattern. Results are presented for Switzerland, where season-related life tables have been computed until age 110.

Description: The abstract for the paper IDL, the International Database on Longevity.