Comment: Female mortality at age 70-79 years decreased fairly steadily throughout the twentieth century, but male mortality did not begin to decline consistently until
around 1970. In both sexes, the rates are now accelerating downward as if in free fall.
Method: Mortality rates were downloaded from the Human Mortality Database (see www.mortality.org or
www.humanmortality.de)
on 4 December 2009. The plotted lines connect unsmoothed values.
Comment: Female mortality at age 70-79 years decreased fairly steadily throughout the twentieth century, but male mortality did not begin to decline consistently until around 1970. In both sexes, the rates are now accelerating downward as if in free fall.
Method: Mortality rates were downloaded from the Human Mortality Database (see www.mortality.org or www.humanmortality.de) on 4 December 2009. The plotted lines connect unsmoothed values.