Colours: The coloured diamonds represent French males (blue) and females (red); for comparison,
the light grey curves represent males (upper grey curve) and females (lower) in England & Wales.
Comment: Middle-age mortality before about 1950 was characterised not only by generally high levels, but by enormous variability from one year to the next, particularly
for males. The four peak male rates in this graph were in 1871, 1918, 1915 and 1832. The peak female rates were in 1832, 1871, 1854 and 1849.
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.
Colours: The coloured diamonds represent French males (blue) and females (red); for comparison, the light grey curves represent males (upper grey curve) and females (lower) in England & Wales.
Comment: Middle-age mortality before about 1950 was characterised not only by generally high levels, but by enormous variability from one year to the next, particularly for males. The four peak male rates in this graph were in 1871, 1918, 1915 and 1832. The peak female rates were in 1832, 1871, 1854 and 1849.
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.