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Tempo and its tribulations

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How Long Do We Live?

Part of the book series: Demographic Research Monographs ((DEMOGRAPHIC))

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Abstract

Bongaarts and Feeney offer alternatives to period life expectancy with a set of demographic measures equivalent to each other under a Proportionality Assumption. Under this assumption, we show that the measures are given by exponentially weighted moving averages of earlier values of period life expectancy. They are indices of mortality conditions in the recent past. The period life expectancy is an index of current mortality conditions. The difference is a difference between past and present, not a “tempo distortion” in the present. In contrast, the Bongaarts-Feeney tempo-adjusted Total Fertility Rate is a measure of current fertility conditions, which can be understood in terms of a process of birth-age standardization.

©2005 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, reprinted with permission

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 2232 Piedmont Ave University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2120, USA

    Kenneth W. Wachter

Authors
  1. Kenneth W. Wachter
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Statistics, Mathematics and Sociology “W. Pareto”, University of Messina, Via Tommaso Cannizzaro 278, 98100, Messina, Italy

    Elisabetta Barbi

  2. Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Konrad-Zuse-Straße 1, 18057, Rostock, Germany

    James W. Vaupel

  3. Population Council, 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY, 10017, USA

    John Bongaarts

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© 2008 Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock

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Wachter, K.W. (2008). Tempo and its tribulations. In: Barbi, E., Vaupel, J.W., Bongaarts, J. (eds) How Long Do We Live?. Demographic Research Monographs. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78520-0_6

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