Description: Discusses various historical and projected future rates of mortality improvement, with a focus on older ages, and more.

Description: This article is an introduction to the topic of mortality projections and their impact on social security systems. The article reviews two life expectancy graphs and overall trends in life expectancy by gender at birth and age 65 in the United States, Canada and the UK.

Description: This article is a book review of Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism written by Anne Case and Angus Deaton. The book highlights factors that have attributed to the decline in life expectancy in the U.S. over the past two decades. Overall, there has been a significant increase in deaths of despair from drug overdoses, suicides, and alcoholic liver disease that has impacted life expectancy. The review of this book highlights key points and factors in this increase in deaths of despair based on the research of the authors. From an actuarial perspective, this book identifies areas within the U.S. society and economy that would continue this trend and impact future mortality rates and improvement scales.

Description: This editorial explains the benefits of a recent seminar among NAFTA countries on mortality improvement and how social security systems can be affected.

Description: A sample is shown of age-adjusted death rates by cause in the United States population, compiled by H.E.W.‘s National Center for Health Statistics, which appear on pages 77-84 of the T.S.A. 1978 Reports distributed November 1979.

Description: This article provides a perspective on the SOA’s Aging and Retirement research reports, and on the types of research that are included. The SOA does a lot of research on different retirement topics, and many people are not aware of the scope of this work. This article offers an overview of the big picture as we think about the future. The article describes longer-term challenges to the US retirement system and recent developments that have affected the system and created uncertainty. It provides an overview of what individuals have said about retirement and their view of post-retirement risks and planning in a variety of consumer research studies. It then reviews some of the research and provides information on summary reports which provide insight on the findings from multiple related research reports. It also provides information about consumer education and what is currently available and in process. It then focuses on how the SOA is helping retirement professionals understand current and expected change and discusses areas of uncertainty as we help those we serve deal with change.

Description: Attempts to construct an abridged mortality table from the scant data available. The number of persons exposed is 291, among whom there have been 184 deaths.

Description: This article is about war mortality from an 1859 copy of The Spectator, by the Institute of Actuaries, J.I.A. 8 1859, 268-284.

Description: Heart disease, critical illness insurance and the path to change – a personal essay by Jing Lang, FSA, FCIA, FLMI.

Description: This graph indicates the overall historical trend in life expectancy by gender at birth.