Projecting mortality for all countries

This report is an attempt to develop a method for projecting mortality trends in all countries into the future, both over the short term (for one or two decades) and over the long term (for one or two centuries). Two indicators are the focus of this exercise: life expectancy at birth and the infant mortality rate. The projection of the age pattern of mortality is considered but no empirical analysis performed. In the introduction, the reasons for focusing on life expectancy and infant mortality is discussed and a preview of the major issues is provided. Then previous projection approaches are briefly summarized. Analysis is then presented separately for life expectancy and infant mortality, covering appropriate representations of universal time trends and country-specific trends and how they might be predicted. Finally, illustrative projections are used to show the effects of the derived procedures, and some conclusions are drawn.