Sterbetafel

Sterbetafel, known in English as a life table, is a statistical table that describes the mortality experience of a population by age. It summarizes how many people are alive at the start of each age interval, how many die during the interval, and the resulting implications for survival and life expectancy. Life tables are central to demography and actuarial science, and they underpin the pricing of insurance and pensions, as well as projections of population dynamics.

A typical life table presents a set of age-specific quantities. These include l_x, the number of people alive at the beginning of age x; d_x, the number who die during the age interval [x, x+1); q_x, the probability of dying during the interval; p_x, the probability of surviving; and e_x, the life expectancy at age x. Many tables also include L_x (the total number of person-years lived in the interval), and T_x (the total number of person-years remaining for those aged x).

There are different types of life tables. A period life table uses current mortality rates to describe a hypothetical cohort experiencing today's conditions, while a cohort life table follows a real birth cohort over time to reflect changing mortality.

Construction and use: life tables are derived from mortality data, typically from civil registration, census, or survey data, and may involve smoothing or modeling assumptions. They are used for pricing annuities and pensions, evaluating public health and insurance risks, and informing policy and research on population health. History-wise, life tables have been developed and refined since the early modern period, with notable contributions advancing actuarial science and demographic estimation.