UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (CoSS)

DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
ST325: Mathematical Demography

Assignment 1

Thursday 13th May, 2021

Instructions
• Due: 23:59 Hrs, 21 May 2021
• Students will form groups of five (5), submit a report, and present their analysis using Microsoft
power points.
• The report must be typed in 12-point Times New Roman and Single Spaced, using Office
Word, LATEX, etc.
• Make an earnest effort to complete this assignment on your own before discussing it as a group.
• All soft copies (reports and presentation slides) should be sent to act.assignments@gmail.com
as soon as before the due date.
• Late assignments will receive a DEDUCTION of 50% for every day late, or part thereof. NO
EXTENSION of the due date will be granted, except where special consideration is granted
due to exceptional personal circumstances (e.g. illness, with accompanying medical certificate).
To use and pass off as one’s own idea or product the work of another, without expressly
giving credit to another is PLAGIARISM. Plagiarism is an instructional offense. In
the case of undergraduate students, offenders will be reported to the Office of the Dean
and will be dealt with in accordance with the university regulations.

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This assignment aim at imparting practical skills and knowledge to third year actuarial science
students that are imperative in developing their understanding of the profession. By the end of this
assignment, students will gain fundamental ideas on data analytic techniques and approaches used
in constructing life tables. In addition, it will enhance skills in understanding/applying advanced
research works. Communication of the results and analysis is also a critical skill expected to be
strengthened.
Your Task
Assume that you are the actuary. You have been approached by Tanzania’s National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS) to construct the life tables for Tanzania. Because of the inadequacy of vital statistics,
ten experts were chosen to prepare the data for you. Their assignment is to estimate the crude
mortality rates and graduate the data using the Relational Logit Models. These models are used for
comparison in the assessment of empirical estimates of mortality to smooth or adjust defectiveness
in the mortality estimates. They are employed to derive complete life tables using the available
mortality data for only a limited range of ages. Generally, one of the essential uses of model life
tables is in demographic estimation, where mortality data are generally incomplete or inaccurate.
The experts proposed the use of Modified Brass logit system based on a single global standard life
table to graduate the mortality rates. Their advice comes as a result of failure of Simple Brass
Model to capture the complexity associated with variation of levels and ages pattern of the mortality
in the population. This failure arise when the observed mortality of the population become far from
the standard. The proposed model model is given by1
! !
s Y (5) Y (60)
Y (x) = α + βY (x) + γ(x) 1 − s + θ(x) 1 − s + ε, (1)
Y (5) Y (60)

whereby, Y (·) stands for Logit(·), the parameters γ(x) and θ(x) denotes the age-specific coefficients
adjusting the level of child and adult mortality respectively in relation to the standard. These
parameters are constant, they do not vary from one country to the other. The experts successfully
managed to prepare mortality data for 20 years for both males and females from 2000 to 2019. The
data sets contain information on age-specific death rates. You will have to check if there are missing
or noisy data and deal with them accordingly.
Required
You are required to prepare a detailed essay about the construction of life tables for Tanzania. Your
report should include, but not limited to the following contents
Preliminaries Pages
(a) Title page
(b) Declaration of originality
(c) Acknowledgement
(d) Table of Contents
(e) List of Tables (if applicable)
1
For further information See Murray, C.J., Ferguson, B.D., Lopez, A.D., Guillot, M., Salomon, J.A. and Ahmad,
O., 2003. Modified logit life table system: principles, empirical validation, and application. Population studies, 57(2),
pp.165-182.

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(f) List of Figures (if applicable)
(g) List of Abbreviations
(h) Abstract (maximum of 300 words)
Chapter 1: Introduction
Motivation and background behind the study, statement of the problem, objective(s) of the study, the
significance of the study, and literature review
Chapter 2: Construction of the Abridged Life Tables
Construct the abridged life tables for Tanzania for 2000, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2019 for both
males and females. Your answer should cover descriptions of each step used, including
(a) The statistical summary and graphical description of the data for all the years. Use separate
tables for males and females. Using vivid examples, comment on the observed level and pattern
of human mortality.
(b) Assumptions
(c) Methods of estimating the life table functions. Briefly, discuss the reason(s) for your choice.
(d) Description of the life table constructed
Chapter 3: Construction of the Complete Life Tables
(a) Estimate the given mortality in single years of ages. Do not assume constant mortality from
abridged mortality rates over single years of age.
(b) Present the statistical summary and graphical description of the data for all the years. Using
vivid examples, comment on the observed level and pattern of human mortality.
(c) Construct the complete life tables for Tanzania. Your answer should cover a description of each
step used, including
(i) Assumptions
(ii) Methods of estimating the life table functions. Briefly, discuss the reason(s) for your choice
(iii) Description of the life table constructed
Chapter 4: Mortality and Survival Curves
From the life table constructed in part chapter 3, present the graphical description of
(a) Mortality curves
(b) Survival Curves
Using relevant references, comment on the observed difference.
Chapter 5: Life Expectancies
From the results obtained in part chapter 3 summarize in a table:
(a) The life expectancies
(b) The expected age at death

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(c) Plot the results in parts (a) and (b). What is the relationship between these results? Does there
exist a relationship between mortality rates and the results in (a) or (b)?
Compare the life expectancies estimated in parts (a) and (b). Comment on the results obtained.
Compare the official life expectancy published by NBS in 2012 and that estimated in this study2 .
Using relevant references, discuss why the two results differ?
Software
All practical applications of the methods should be done in the statistical computing, and graphics
programming language know as R3 . An analysis done in other software will not be marked. You can
use Excel for data preparation but not for running your analysis. The use of ggplot2 function in
plotting is strongly recommended.
Specific Instructions
• Communication of quantitative results in a concise and easy-to-read manner is a skill that is
vital in practice. To this end, marks will be given for a good presentation of your work. Please
consider table size/readability, figure axis/formatting, grammar/spelling, and report structure.
• Provide sufficient details to the reader so that they can judge what you are doing. All life
tables should be submitted in a separate document .pdf file, and references made in the main
analysis.
• Note that a maximum page limit for the report is 30 pages (excluding tables) is applicable to
the main body of the report.
• In addition to your report, you will be required to prepare presentation slides (no page limit).
The time for each presentation will not be more than 15 minutes.
• Detailed R codes should be submitted along with the main report. Do not copy codes from
other groups; all codes will be checked. In case any form of plagiarism is noted, the whole
analysis will be at stake.
• The data required for your analysis, mortality_data_for_Tanzania_2021.xlsx can
be downloaded on the course site.

2
Mortality and Health Monograph from National Bureau of Statistics can be accessed here:
http://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/census2012/ Mortality and Health Monograph.pdf
3
R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical
Computing, Vienna, Austria, 2016. URL https://www.R-project.org/.