Browsing by Author "Rau, Roland"

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    Research versus Rhetoric.
    (Gerontology, 2013) Vaupel, James W; Rau, Roland
    Limited to 1,000 words, we address some serious technical mistakes and factual errors, as well as the misleading quotations in the section of Olshansky's and Carnes' article that attacks some of our joint research.
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    Rise, stagnation, and rise of Danish women's life expectancy.
    (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2016-04-12) Lindahl-Jacobsen, Rune; Rau, Roland; Jeune, Bernard; Canudas-Romo, Vladimir; Lenart, Adam; Christensen, Kaare; Vaupel, James W
    Health conditions change from year to year, with a general tendency in many countries for improvement. These conditions also change from one birth cohort to another: some generations suffer more adverse events in childhood, smoke more heavily, eat poorer diets, etc., than generations born earlier or later. Because it is difficult to disentangle period effects from cohort effects, demographers, epidemiologists, actuaries, and other population scientists often disagree about cohort effects' relative importance. In particular, some advocate forecasts of life expectancy based on period trends; others favor forecasts that hinge on cohort differences. We use a combination of age decomposition and exchange of survival probabilities between countries to study the remarkable recent history of female life expectancy in Denmark, a saga of rising, stagnating, and now again rising lifespans. The gap between female life expectancy in Denmark vs. Sweden grew to 3.5 y in the period 1975-2000. When we assumed that Danish women born 1915-1945 had the same survival probabilities as Swedish women, the gap remained small and roughly constant. Hence, the lower Danish life expectancy is caused by these cohorts and is not attributable to period effects.
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    The emergence of longevous populations.
    (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2016-11-29) Colchero, Fernando; Rau, Roland; Jones, Owen R; Barthold, Julia A; Conde, Dalia A; Lenart, Adam; Nemeth, Laszlo; Scheuerlein, Alexander; Schoeley, Jonas; Torres, Catalina; Zarulli, Virginia; Altmann, Jeanne; Brockman, Diane K; Bronikowski, Anne M; Fedigan, Linda M; Pusey, Anne E; Stoinski, Tara S; Strier, Karen B; Baudisch, Annette; Alberts, Susan C; Vaupel, James W
    The human lifespan has traversed a long evolutionary and historical path, from short-lived primate ancestors to contemporary Japan, Sweden, and other longevity frontrunners. Analyzing this trajectory is crucial for understanding biological and sociocultural processes that determine the span of life. Here we reveal a fundamental regularity. Two straight lines describe the joint rise of life expectancy and lifespan equality: one for primates and the second one over the full range of human experience from average lifespans as low as 2 y during mortality crises to more than 87 y for Japanese women today. Across the primate order and across human populations, the lives of females tend to be longer and less variable than the lives of males, suggesting deep evolutionary roots to the male disadvantage. Our findings cast fresh light on primate evolution and human history, opening directions for research on inequality, sociality, and aging.