Worldwide Mortality: From Historical Trends to Future Projections

Life expectancy is a key metric for understanding mortality trends and it varies widely
depending on factors such as age, gender and geography. During this websession, we will delve
into the latest research and data on mortality trends and explore how they have changed over
time.
Since the middle of the 20th century, world-wide mortality has steadily improved, but not at the
same rate in all regions, so that clear differences can be recognised between countries. In some
OECD – countries, there has even been a recent decline in mortality improvement, and the
COVID-19 pandemic has at least temporarily reinforced this trend.
We analyse different age groups, their causes of death and how they coincide with mortality
developments. In addition to that, we will discuss the drivers behind changes in mortality, such
as advances in medicine and public health, changes in lifestyle and socioeconomic factors.
Understanding the various drivers of mortality is essential for predicting future trends and
consequently for the assessment of the biometric risk in life- and pension insurance.
Our online training will also explore the implications of changing life expectancies for our work
as actuaries. We will discuss how we can use data and analysis to better understand these
changes and make informed decisions about the future. In this context, we also outline the
strengths and limitations of the Lee-Carter model as a widely used model for predicting future
mortality rates.
Last but not least, we discuss general uncertainties around future mortality, where we focus
especially on the demographic and geographical factors analysed in the first part of the lecture.