Mortality forecasting using a modified Continuous Mortality Investigation Mortality Projections Model for China I: Methodology and country-level results

In this paper, we project future mortality rates for actuarial use with Chinese data using a modified Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) Mortality Projections Model. The model adopts a convergence structure from initial to long-term rates of mortality improvement as the process of projection. The initial rates of mortality improvement are derived using two-dimensional P-spline methodology. Given the short history of Chinese data, the long-term rates of mortality improvement are determined by borrowing information from international experience. K-means clustering with dynamic time warping distance is used to classify populations, which is novel in the actuarial mortality research field. The original CMI approach is deterministic, however, in this paper we make it stochastic using techniques outlined by Koller and described by Browne et al. Comparing our results with a pure extrapolative approach, we find that the CMI Mortality Projections Model is more suitable for long-term projections for China.