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Attrition in heterogeneous cohorts

Author

Listed:
  • James W. Vaupel

    (Syddansk Universitet)

  • Zhen Zhang

    (Fudan University)

Abstract

In a heterogeneous cohort, the change with age in the force of mortality or some other kind of hazard or intensity of attrition depends on how the hazard changes with age for the individuals in the cohort and on how the composition of the cohort changes due to the loss of those most vulnerable to attrition. Here we prove that the change with age for the cohort equals the average of the change in the hazard for the individuals in the cohort minus the variance in the hazard across individuals. The variance captures the compositional change. This very general and remarkably elegant relationship can be applied to understand and to analyze changes with age in many kinds of demographic hazards, including, e.g., the lifetable aging rate or the intensity of first births.

Suggested Citation

  • James W. Vaupel & Zhen Zhang, 2010. "Attrition in heterogeneous cohorts," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 23(26), pages 737-748.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:23:y:2010:i:26
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2010.23.26
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Anna Zajacova & Sarah Burgard, 2013. "Healthier, Wealthier, and Wiser: A Demonstration of Compositional Changes in Aging Cohorts Due to Selective Mortality," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(3), pages 311-324, June.
    2. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, 2014. "Mortality Deceleration and Mortality Selection: Three Unexpected Implications of a Simple Model," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(1), pages 51-71, February.
    3. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, 2013. "Mortality deceleration is not informative of unobserved heterogeneity in open groups," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 11(1), pages 15-36.
    4. James W. Vaupel & Trifon Missov, 2014. "Unobserved population heterogeneity," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(22), pages 659-686.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mortality; heterogeneity; attrition; frailty; Gompertz law; gamma distribution; Makeham;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

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