Volume 23 - Article 23 | Pages 655–668  

Senescence vs. sustenance: Evolutionary-demographic models of aging

By Annette Baudisch, James W. Vaupel

Abstract

Humans, and many other species, suffer senescence: mortality increases and fertility declines with adult age. Some species, however, enjoy sustenance: mortality and fertility remain constant. Here we develop simple but general evolutionary-demographic models to explain the conditions that favor senescence vs. sustenance. The models illustrate how mathematical demography can deepen understanding of the evolution of aging.

Author's Affiliation

• Annette Baudisch - Syddansk Universitet, Denmark EMAIL
• James W. Vaupel - Syddansk Universitet, Denmark EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

How lifespan and life years lost equate to unity
Volume 50 - Article 24

Outsurvival as a measure of the inequality of lifespans between two populations
Volume 44 - Article 35

Born once, die once: Life table relationships for fertility
Volume 44 - Article 2

Onset of the old-age gender gap in survival
Volume 42 - Article 25

The impact of the choice of life table statistics when forecasting mortality
Volume 41 - Article 43

The threshold age of the lifetable entropy
Volume 41 - Article 4

Life lived and left: Estimating age-specific survival in stable populations with unknown ages
Volume 39 - Article 37

Evolution of fixed demographic heterogeneity from a game of stable coexistence
Volume 38 - Article 8

Coherent forecasts of mortality with compositional data analysis
Volume 37 - Article 17

In Memoriam: Professor Jan M. Hoem
Volume 36 - Article 24

Demographic characteristics of Sardinian centenarian genealogies: Preliminary results of the AKeA2 study
Volume 32 - Article 37

The Gompertz force of mortality in terms of the modal age at death
Volume 32 - Article 36

Maternal longevity is associated with lower infant mortality
Volume 31 - Article 42

Unobserved population heterogeneity: A review of formal relationships
Volume 31 - Article 22

The pace of aging: Intrinsic time scales in demography
Volume 30 - Article 57

The difference between alternative averages
Volume 27 - Article 15

How life expectancy varies with perturbations in age-specific mortality
Volume 27 - Article 13

Attrition in heterogeneous cohorts
Volume 23 - Article 26

Total daily change with age equals average lifetime change
Volume 22 - Article 36

Survival as a Function of Life Expectancy
Volume 21 - Article 29

The age separating early deaths from late deaths
Volume 20 - Article 29

Life lived and left: Carey’s equality
Volume 20 - Article 3

Formal Relationships: Introduction and Orientation
Volume 20 - Article 1

The relative tail of longevity and the mean remaining lifetime
Volume 14 - Article 7

Lifesaving, lifetimes and lifetables
Volume 13 - Article 24

Oldest Old Mortality in China
Volume 8 - Article 7

Life Expectancy at Current Rates vs. Current Conditions: A Reflexion Stimulated by Bongaarts and Feeney’s "How Long Do We Live?"
Volume 7 - Article 8

Decomposing demographic change into direct vs. compositional components
Volume 7 - Article 1

Dr. Väinö Kannisto: A Reflexion
Volume 6 - Article 5

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Uncovering disability-free grandparenthood in Italy between 1998 and 2016 using gender-specific decomposition
Volume 50 - Article 42    | Keywords: aging, decomposition, disability, grandparenthood, Italy

Two-dimensional contour decomposition: Decomposing mortality differences into initial difference and trend components by age and cause of death
Volume 50 - Article 41    | Keywords: decomposition methods, mortality

International completeness of death registration
Volume 50 - Article 38    | Keywords: data collection, death, mortality, statistics, sustainable development goals, vital registration

Incorporating subjective survival information in mortality and change in health status predictions: A Bayesian approach
Volume 50 - Article 36    | Keywords: Bayesian demography, health, mortality, self report, subjective mortality probabilities

Standardized mean age at death (MADstd): Exploring its potentials as a measure of human longevity
Volume 50 - Article 30    | Keywords: formal demography, life expectancy, mean age at death, mortality, standardization