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Concept
A tabular numerical representation of mortality and survivorship of a cohort of births at each age. It comprises an array of measures, including probabilities of death, probabilities of survival and life expectancies at various ages.
Complete life tables present life table functions for each single year of age, while abridged life tables present life table functions for age groups.
Current, period or cross-sectional life tables are based on current mortality rates. These tables assume that as a cohort passes through life it experiences a given pattern of age-specific mortality rates, which do not change from year to year. Although it is usually based on death rates from a real population during a particular period of time, these tables are a hypothetical model of mortality as they do not describe the real mortality that characterises a cohort as it ages.
Cohort, longitudinal, or generation life tables are based on the actual mortality experience of a particular cohort (eg all people born in the year 1900). These tables require data over many years, from infancy to the oldest age lived by the cohort (ie until the death of the last survivor).
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