DeRaS – Software Tool for Modeling Mortality Intensities and Life Table Construction

Boris Burcin, Charles University in Prague
Klara Hulikova, Charles University in Prague
David Kománek, Charles University in Prague
Tomas Kucera, Charles University in Prague

This poster briefly introduces a new SW application for life table construction. In demography, life tables are the most important tools for mortality analysis. Habitually, specific methods of smoothing or extrapolating mortality rates are used for their construction. The newly introduced SW application DeRaS (Death Rates Simulation) offers several of these methods (Gompertz, Gompertz-Makeham, Kannisto, Thatcher, Coale-Kisker, and Heligman-Pollard) to its users. Besides one of these methods one can also choose the age interval used for a selected model calibration, the type of life table (complete or abridged), the upper age limit (up to 120 years) and the type of graphical outputs. When calibrating the model, the weighted generalized least squares represent the universally applied estimator. A wide offer of smoothing and extrapolating methods, an easy use and built-in numerical as well as graphical evaluation of obtained results make DeRaS a powerful tool for education, research and various practical applications.