"The Final Inequality: Variance in the Age of Adult Death in Industrialized Countries," Shripad Tuljapurkar, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University

Life expectancy is used to measure population health and how it is affected by inequality. But variance in the timing of death is a sharper measure of inequality in the determinants of mortality. Dr. Tuljapurkar reports striking differences in the variance of ages of adult death in industrialized countries. The United States has the highest variance, with no decline over the last 40 years. Japan began at a level close to the US, but ended at the lowest variance in the world. Progress in reducing inequality has slowed: world-record low variance declined much faster from 1875 to 1950 than it has after 1950: The challenge for a healthy 21st century is as much to reduce inequality at death as to lengthen life.

Dr. Tuljapurkar is Professor of Biological Sciences and the Dean and Virginia Morrison Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University, and the Associate Director of the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies.

The Winter Colloquium of the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies encourages interdisciplinary approaches to research and teaching in areas related to the global issues of population growth, environmental change, resource use, and economic development. Colloquium lectures are free and open to the general public. Credit is available for HumBio 60 and BioSci 146.