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 abstract introduces the paper that demonstrates that marital status has as much influence on rates of human mortality as the better known factors of gender and smoking habits. The validity of various explanations is examined.

Description: Provides white vs. black mortality rates based upon Social Security data for years 1984 - 1988, and separate tables based upon data from 'Health United States' for years 1983 - 1987 and data from 'Vital Statistics of the United States' for years 1983 - 1987.

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: The purpose of this report is to develop information that may be useful to the Pennsylvania legislature in its efforts to regulate the funding of pre-need contracts. What we have done is to develop a theoretical basis for regulation and then to suggest some practical approaches to initial implementation.

Description: This paper shows that Balucci hypothesis imposed on a survivorship function over a closed interval is dual to the uniform distribution of deaths hypothesis imposed on the survivorship function over the same interval.

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.