Ricerc@Sapienza

One of the oldest but still debated question in
evolutionary demography is about the shape of
the mortality trajectory for humans at extreme
ages. Several studies suggested that for humans
adult and early-old death rates rise exponentially
up to about age 80 and thereafter decelerate. Other
studies, however, found that the exponential
increase of the mortality risk with age continues
at advanced ages in humans. Recent studies on
exceptionally long-lived individuals have shown
that the trajectory of mortality levels off at

Background: life expectancy considerably increased in most developed countries during the twentieth century.
However, the increase in longevity is neither uniform nor random across individuals belonging to various
socioeconomic groups. From an economic policy perspective, the difference in mortality by socioeconomic
conditions challenges the fairness of the social security systems. We focus on the case of Italy and aim at
measuring differences in longevity at older ages by individuals belonging to different socioeconomic groups, also

Tantrism represents the esoteric traditions originated in India around 500-600 AD. Hindu Tantric scriptures were composed from the eighth century onwards, primarily in Kashmir and Nepal and from those regions they were gradually introduced in Tibet where they were translated concurrently with the hagiographies of famous saints. Tantric teachings are revered and practiced by all major and minor Buddhist schools as well as Bon, the autochthonous spiritual tradition of Tibet.