The ratio (RMR) is the standard measure of sex differentials in mortality. It is commonly known that the RMR was historically small and increased throughout the 20th century. However, numerical properties might account for the trend in the RMR rather than sex differences in risk factors. In this...

Patterns of diversity in age at death are examined using e†, a dispersion measure that also equals the average expected lifetime lost at death. We apply two methods for decomposing differences in e†. The first method estimates the contributions of average levels of mortality and mortality...

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We study inter-individual variability in number of children among women. Concentration ratio (CR) and percentile measures are used. In most countries CR has increasing from cohorts of the 1930s-40s onward due to rise in childlessness. In cohorts of the early 1960s CR varies from 0.24 to 0.46...

As one aspect of the complex feature of longevity, gene-sex interaction plays an important role in influencing human life span. With advances in molecular genetics, more studies aimed at assessing gene-sex interaction are expected. New and valid statistical methods are needed. In this paper, we...

Objectives - We examine the relationship between sleep duration and health in the high mortality context of Russia. Methods - Night and daytime sleep durations are based on self-reports and 24-hour heart rate trends (Holter monitoring). The sample of 201 individuals (Holter data for 185) is...

The old age population in developed countries has been increasing remarkably, yet internationally comparable high quality data on oldest-old mortality remain relatively scarce. The Kannisto-Thatcher Old Age Mortality Database (KTD) is a unique source providing uniformly recalculated old-age...

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How does a woman’s reproductive history influence her life span? We find that parity and both an early and late birth significantly influence longevity. The impact of a woman’s reproductive history on her life span is minor, however, compared to the influence of her level of education or...

Individuals at the same age in the same population differ along numerous risk factors that affect their chances of various causes of death. The frail and susceptible tend to die first. This differential selection may partially account for some of the puzzles in cancer epidemiology, including the...