elinikätaulukoihin

elinikätaulukoihin, commonly translated as life tables or mortality tables, are statistical tools used to describe the mortality patterns of a population. They present the probability of dying at each age or age interval, as well as other related demographic indicators.

A typical life table starts with an initial cohort of individuals, usually 100,000 births. The table then follows this cohort through their lives, recording the number of survivors at each age and the number of deaths within specific age intervals. From this data, various measures can be calculated. The most prominent is life expectancy at birth, which represents the average number of years a newborn is expected to live, assuming current mortality rates remain constant. Life expectancy at other ages can also be derived.

Life tables are fundamental in actuarial science for calculating life insurance premiums and pension liabilities. They are also crucial for demographers and public health researchers to understand population health trends, identify disparities in mortality, and inform policy decisions related to healthcare, social security, and population planning. Different types of life tables exist, including period life tables, which reflect mortality rates at a specific point in time, and cohort life tables, which track the mortality experience of a specific group of people born in the same year.