The application of an age-structured model with unbounded mortality to demography

We carry out a simulation of the female population of the USA using the non-autonomous Lotka–McKendrick model with finite maximum age and recent demographic data. The most important contributions in our study are the identification of the mortality rate (including the maximum age) and the design and analysis of a numerical method that works efficiently with unbounded mortality rates. We also consider the effect in the population projections produced by different ways to choose the vital rates and we present a sensitivity analysis with respect to the mortality. Finally, we exemplify the limitations the data impose on the quality of the projections of this model through a 10-year simulation for the USA from 1990 to 2000 and we project the female population of the USA in 2010 using this model.