Tempo effect on age-specific death rates

Abstract

It is widely known that shifts of cohort fertility schedule can produce misleading trends in period TFR. This note shows that such a "tempo bias" can occur in age-specific mortality as well: if the age distribution of cohort deaths shifts toward older (younger) ages, the period age-specific death rate are biased downward (upward).

Keywords

• age-specific death rates
• mortality
• tempo effect