abstract:In actuarial science, force of mortality represents the instantaneous rate of mortality at a certain age measured on an annualized basis. It is identical in concept to failure rate, also called hazard function, in reliability theory.
But as the UK has got safer and healthier, the force-of-mortality has been decreasing for decades, so that life expectancy has been rising at about three months a year - it's odd to think we have been essentially ageing only nine months for each year that passes.