Changing mortality from 1841 to 1947 measured by the life table.

Abstract

-Until the mid-1930s there were wide discrepancies in the expectation of life in four major English-speaking communities, viz. England and Wales, U.S.A., Australia, and New Zealand. The initial aim of this communication was to draw attention to a spectacular, unequal, and concurrent rise, the outcome of which is that the'latest figures differ little inter se. A closer examination of contributory changes in different age groups prompted the question: in what age groups has the conservation of life during the past century been pre-eminently responsible for the continuous rise of the expectation of life in England and Wales during the same period ? The answer will permit us to see more clearly what age groups can materially participate in further improvement henceforth. Though we may credit an Englishman, Halley (1693), with the making of the first life table, the data he employed refer to a German city and are grossly defective as regards the age structure of the population. In 1783 Richard Price published a table referable to Northampton, the first of its kind to use British data. Unfortunately the errors in this table enabled the insurance companies to net a small fortune from life insurance, and H.M. government lost £2 million by it. For British life-table statistics in which we can place much confidence we cannot go back earlier than Farr (1843), though a Table based on deaths for 1774-87 in the city of Carlisle was published by Milne (1815). During the 19th century the procedure changed little, though greater reliability resulted from better registration. There is no need to add what Dublin and others (1949) or Kuczynski (1935) have lately written concerning minor refinements in the technique. The symbols employed below are those now in general use, viz.: If A be the age-group interval adopted (here 1 year for the first 5 years, and 5 years thereafter),