Estimating the age at which the “old" become "old-old"

Borek Puza, Australian National University
Christopher Heathcote, Australian National University

The problem discussed is the possible deceleration of the survival curve at older ages, with the age at which this occurs marking the transition from 'old' to 'old-old'. Previous work using the life table aging rate or regression methods indicates that such a deceleration exists for some populations of elderly females but apparently not for males. Results on the rate of change of the survival curve are presented using data from the Australian health and disability surveys of 1988, 1993 and 1998. For this data deceleration does appear to occur for both males and females and also for survival curves in the states of disability-free and disabled.