At very old ages mortality decelerates in developed countries. We show that this is also the case for China.We find that the Kannisto model, a two-parameter logistic formula, fits Han Chinese death rates at oldest-old ages better than the Gompertz and four other models. Chinese death rates appear to be roughly similar to Swedish and Japanese rates after age 97 for both males and females. Since reports of age appear to be serviceably reliable up to age 100 and perhaps age 105 in China, we think that this convergence may be mainly due to mortality selection in the heterogeneous Chinese population.
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Yi, Z., Vaupel, J.W. (2007). Oldest-Old Mortality in China. In: Robine, JM., Crimmins, E.M., Horiuchi, S., Yi, Z. (eds) Human Longevity, Individual Life Duration, and the Growth of the Oldest-Old Population. International Studies in Population, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4848-7_4
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