Fitting and forecasting mortality for Assam population by applying the Lee-Carter model

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the feasibility of using the Lee-Carter model for forecasting the mortality of Assam population. The stochastic mortality model given by Lee and Carter (1992) is used for fitting and forecasting the human mortality of Assam for both the gender. We fit the model to the matrix of Assam death rates based on decade-wise data separately for Assam male and female population in the form of life tables for the period 1995-99 to 2009-13. The parameters of the model are estimated using the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) method. A time-varying index of mortality is forecasted up to 2030 year using ARIMA model and is used to generate projected life tables.