Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108CH APT ER 1 37 FIG. 1-15 PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS AGE 70 AND OLDER DYING BETWEEN 1993 AND 2002, BY SUBJECTIVE SURVIVAL OUTLOOK IN 1993 (Respondents age 70 and older in 1993) believe they will be especially long lived will save more to be able to finance more years of spending. In the past, researchers had to use life-table survival rates to estimate the subjective survival probabilities of individu- als, but we know from actual mortality that survival rates of people grouped by observ- able characteristics such as education differ greatly. It is likely, therefore, that individuals have differing self-rated survival assessments, even within identifiable groups. As with many innovations in the HRS, the actual use of survival assessments has expanded beyond what was initially foreseen. For example, they have been used to study the socioeconomic health gradient (How does subjective survival vary with income and wealth?), the “bereavement effect” (How does subjective survival change when a spouse dies?), and the effect of a health event (How does the onset of a cancer change subjective survival?).                  3UBJECTIVE3URVIVAL0ROBABILITYINONASCALEFROMTO           Using the longitudinal data from the HRS, self-rated survival assessments can be related to actual mortality many years later. In 1992, an 11-point scale (from 0 to 10) was used to query HRS respondents about their outlook for survival. Figure 1-14 shows the percent of the original HRS sample who had died by 2002, as a function of their subjective survival outlook as of 1992. Mortality during the 10-year period was about 10 percent among those who stated that their subjective survival was 60 percent or greater, but more than 25 percent among those who reported very low subjective survival probabilities. In 1993, a 101-point scale (from 0 to 100) was used for interviews of respondents age 70 or over in 1993. This scale change was made so the concept would fit more naturally with probabilistic information people normally hear in their everyday lives, such as “There is a 60 percent chance it will rain tomor- row.” Figure 1-15 shows mortality by 2002 among those initially age 70 or over in 1993. Actual mortality among those with an initial subjective survival of zero was almost 60 percent—about twice the rate of those whose subjective survival was 51 to 75. As with the younger cohort of Figure 1-14, self-rated survival assessments are a powerful predictor of actual mortality.