A COMPARISON OF PARAMETRIC MORTALITY MODELS TO GRADUATE URBAN AND RURAL MORTALITY

Abstract

This study examine twenty-nine parametric mortality models and assess their suitability for graduating mortality rates of urban and rural areas in Pakistan. Grouped age specific mortality rates of rural and urban populations for the year 2019 are used. The data is collected from the website of National Institute of Population Studies which conduct Maternal Mortality Survey in Pakistan on regular basis. The parametric mortality models were applied to rural and urban mortality data. We used R software to estimate the model’s parameters and assess their suitability for urban and rural populations. The suitability of these models was assessed by using 3 different loss functions. Our analyses found that the fourth type of Heligman-Polard’s model with loss function 3 provides reliable results for graduating the mortality of rural population while second type of Carriere model with loss function 3 produce best results for graduating the urban mortality of Pakistan. Based on two models, mortality rates of urban and rural population have been graduated over age range 0-85. We suggest the use the graduated mortality rates of urban and rural areas for pricing life insurance products in rural and urban areas respectively. In addition, graduated mortality rates are also suggested for use in calculation of life insurance liabilities.