CHAPTER 10

THE MORTALITY TABLE

Example 1: What is the probability that a person aged 30 will attain age
50?
Solution: Of the l30 persons alive at age 30, l50 will still be alive at age 50:
l5 0 166,682
= 0.93597
l3 0 = 178084

Example 2: What is the probability that a person aged 20 will die within 1
year?
Solution: Of the l20 persons alive at age 20, l21 will still be alive at age 21.
Therefore l20 - l21 persons will die within 1 year, so that the required
probability is:
l20  l21 181,322  180,977
  0.0019
l20 181,322

Example 3: What is the probability that a person aged 25 will die between
ages 60 and 70?
Solution: Of the l25 persons alive at age 25, l60 will be alive at age 60 and
l70 at age 70. Then, of the l25 persons, l60 - l70 will die between ages 60 and
70 so that the required probability is:
l60  l70 150,281 116,630
  0.18734
l25 179,627

Example 4: what is the probability that a 20-year-old man will live to age
50?
Of a group of 1000- 20-year-old men, what is the predicted number that will
live to age 50?
Solution: The probability that a 20-year-old man will live to age 50 is simply
the number still living at age 50 divided by the number living at age 20.
l50 166 ,682
= = 0 .9193
l20 181,322
Out of 1000 20-year- old men, the predicted number that will live to age
50 is 1000 × 0.9193 = 919.

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Example 5: What is the probability that a 20-year-old man will die before
reaching age 50? Of a group of 1000 20-year-old men, what is the
predicted number that will die before reaching age 50?
Solution: the probability of a man dying between age 20 and age 50 is the
number dying during this period divided by the number living at age 20.
l20  l50 181,322  166,682
  0.0807
l 181,322
20

The probability of dying by age 50:

= 1 – 0.9193 = 0.0807.
Out of 1000- 20-year-old men, the predicted number that will die before
reaching age 50 is 1000 x 0.0807 = 81.
Although the lx column is all we need to compute the probabilities used
in this book, it is convenient to have another column called the dx column.
The term dx represents the number, of the lx persons attaining precise age
x, who die before reaching age x + 1. Thus, dx = lx - lx+1.
We could have used the dx column in solving example 2 above. Thus,
of the l20 persons alive at age 20, d20 will die within 1 year so that the
required probability is:
d 20 345
  0.0019
l20 181322

3-Notation: The symbol (x) is used to represent a person aged x, or a life

aged x.
n
px denotes the probability that (x) will live n years.
l
n
px = xn . If n = 1, the left-hand subscript is omitted.
lx
Thus, px denotes the probability that (x) will live 1 year.
l
px = x1 .
lx
n
px denotes the probability that (x) will die within n years.
l x  l xn
q
n x 
lx

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 If n = 1, the left-hand subscript is omitted.
Thus qx denoted the probability that (x) will die within 1 year.
l  l x1 d x
qx  x 
lx lx
m|nqxdenotes the probability that (x) will live m years but die in the next n
years; that is, that (x) will die between ages: x + m and x + m + n.
l xm  l xmn
q
mn x 
lx
If n = 1, it is omitted form the notation so that m|nqx denotes the
probability that (x) dies between ages x + m and x + m + 1.
l xm  l xmn d xm
q
mn x  
lx lx
The following general observations should be made:
1- The right-hand subscript represents the present age of the person in
question.
2- The left-hand subscript represents the period of years during which the
event (living or dying) is to take place.
3- The letter or number before the bar represents the period of deferment.
4- The letter p is used to denote the probability of an individual’s living a
given period.
5- The letter q is used to denote the probability of an individual’s dying
during given period. The probability of dying within a year for a person
age x is indicated by the symbol qχ. This probability is obtained by
dividing the number dying at age x by the number living at age x. In
d
symbols, qχ = x .
lx
Numerical Illustrations:
10 p20 represents the probability that a life aged 20 will live 10 years, i.e., will
live to be age 30.
p20 represents the probability that (20) will live to be 21.
5q30 represents the probability that (30) will die before reaching age 35.
q30 represents the probability that (30) will die before reaching age 31.

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10|5q20 represents the probability that (20) will die between ages 30 and 35;
that is, that (20) will live 10 years but die during the next 5.
10|q20 represents the probability that (20) will die between ages 30 and 31.
4-Expectation of Life: The average number of complete years to be lived
in the future by persons now aged x is called the curate expectation of life
of (x). The words “complete years” imply that, in computing the average,
fractions of a year lived will be disregarded. This is the same as assuming
that all deaths occur in the instant after a birthday.
Consider lx persons who are alive at age x. lx+1 of these will be alive at
age x+1, so that a total of lx+1 years will be lived during the first year
following the reference age, x. similarly, a total of lx+2 years will be lived
during the second year, lx+3 during the third year, ad so forth. The total
number of years lived by these lx persons will be lx+1 + lx+2 + lx+3 + …. + lω-1,
so that the average number of full years, or the curate expectation of life, is:
e x  l x1  l x2  l xlx3............ l 1
Where: ex = expectation of life of a person aged x.
lx = number living at age x.
ω = terminal age of the mortality table.
The symbol Σ is the capital Greek letter sigma.
This standard mathematical symbol is sued to indicate summation of similar
terms.
This question can be looked at in another way, by using the concept of
mathematical expectation. If we think of (x) as receiving a reward of 1 for
every complete year that he lives, his mathematical expectation for the
whole of life would be the probability that he lives 1 year times his reward of
1 plus the probability that he lives 2 years times his reward of 1, and so
forth. In symbols,
e x  p x  2 p x  3 p x. ............   x 1 p x
The two expressions for ex are exactly equal.
The average number of years, including fractions, to be lived in the
future by persons now aged x is called the complete expectation of life of

(x) and is denoted by e x . If we assume that deaths are evenly distributed
throughout the year, we can say that on the average a person will be
halfway form one birthday to the next at death. Therefore:

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 
e x  ex  12
The concept of expectation of life is useful in two major respects. First,
it is useful in comparing in very general terms the level of mortality under
various mortality tables. Second, it can be used by experienced actuaries in
making a rough analysis of certain types of problems. Contrary to rather
popular opinion, this concept is not used in precise actuarial calculations
relating to premiums.
The index of summation t ranges over the integers 1, 2, 3… ω – χ – 1.
Thus if we want the expectation of life of a person aged χ, we start with the
number living 1 year later, add the number living 2 years later, and continue
in this way to the end of the mortality table. This sum gives the full years of
future lifetime for the group of persons age χ.
When this sum is divided by lχ , the number living at age χ, we get the
full years of future life for each person on the average. This summation
makes no allowance for fractional years of life. We assume that complete
future lifetimes will exceed by half a year the number of complete years, so
we add 0.5 year to get the complete future lifetime.
To show how this formula is used, we compute the expectation of life
for men aged 90 using the 1980 CSO Table. Calculations for younger
people are done in exactly the same way but are more tedious because of
the larger number of terms in the summation. We substitute 90 for χ in the
formula and find from the mortality table that l90 = 468,174. This is the
number of men over whom we will average the full years of future lifetime.
For t = 1, l91 = 361,365; for t = 2, l92 = 272,552. We continue in this way to
the last term in the summation, which is for t = (100 – 90 – 1) = 9. For t = 9,
l99 = 6415. Arranging the complete problem in tabular form, we have:
Example 5: Show that:
ex  px 2 px 3 px   x px
Solution: px +2 px +3 px ++ x px
= x+1 + x+2 + x+3 ++ 
l l l l
lx lx lx lx
l +l +l ++ l
= x+1 x+2 x+3 = ex
lx

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Example 6: Show that:
l x  l x2  d x  d x1  d x2   d xn1
d x  d x1  d x2    d xn1
 (l x  l x1 )  (l x1  l x2 )  (l x2  l x3 )  
 (l xn2  l xn1 )  (l xn1  l xn )
Solution:
 l x  l x1  l x1  l x2  l x2  l x3  
 l xn2  l xn1  l xn1  l xn
 l x  l xn
Example 6: Show that: m  n p x m p x m|nq x
Solution:
l x+m l x+m l x+m+n
m px m|nqx = l lx
x
l x+m+n
= = m+npx
lx
22-Complete the following table:
x lx dx qx px ex 
ex
95 1000
96 700
97 400
98 100
99 10
100 0

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23-Complete the following table:
x lx dx qx px
21 1600
22 1200 0.3
23 400 0.65
24
25 344 0.375

23-If: l36 = 100,000 q36 = 0.02 p37 = 0.95

l39 = 83,790 d39 = 16,758 p40 = 0.75
Construct the mortality table.