The Rhythm of Aging: Stability and Drift in Human Senescence

Abstract: Human aging is marked by a steady rise in mortality risk with age - a process demographers describe as senescence. While life expectancy has improved dramatically over the past century, a fundamental question remains: is the rate at which mortality accelerates biologically fixed, or has it shifted across generations? Vaupel's hypothesis suggests that the pace of aging is stable - that humans are not aging more slowly, but simply starting later. To test this, we analyze cohort mortality data from France, Denmark, Italy, and Sweden. We use a two-step framework to first isolate senescent mortality, then decompose the Gompertz slope into three parts: a biological constant, a potential trend, and a cumulative period effect. The results show that most variation in the rate of aging is not biological in origin. Once non-senescent deaths and historical shocks are accounted for, the Gompertz slope is remarkably stable. The fluctuations we see are not signs of changing senescence, but echoes of shared history. Aging itself, it seems, has stayed the same. These findings suggest that while longevity has shifted, the fundamental rhythm of human aging may be biologically fixed - shaped not by evolution, but by history.