📝 SummarXiv

Abstract

Human aging is marked by a steady rise in the risk of dying with age--a process demographers call senescence. Over the past century, life expectancy has risen dramatically, but is this because we are aging slower, or simply starting it later? Vaupel hypothesizes that the pace at which individuals age may be constant, with gains in longevity coming from the delayed onset of senescence rather than its slowing down. We test this idea using a new framework that decomposes the pace of senescence into three components: a biological baseline, a long-term trend, and the cumulative impact of period shocks. Applying this to cohort mortality data from 12 countries, we find that once period shocks are accounted for, there is no statistical evidence of a long-term trend, consistent Vaupel's hypothesis. Rather than indicating a change in the process that drives senescence, these variations are consistent with echoes of shared historical events. These results suggest that while longevity has shifted, the rhythm of human aging may be conserved.