While “classical” demography imputes population ageing to low fertility, a recent “revisionist” line of thinking signals the emergence of ageing “from the top” (i.e., due to low mortality), starting slightly after World War II. We join this debate proving that, in the long run, mortality affects the population age structure, and therefore also ageing, more than customarily believed. With data taken from the Human Mortality Database on eight populations located in Europe, North America and Oceania, and for as far back as possible (up to 1820 in some cases), and applying cointegration analysis, we show that most of the historical change observed in the proportions of young, adult and old people in these countries can be derived solely from changes in survival, ignoring fertility and migration.

虽然“古典”人口统计学将人口老龄化归因于低生育率，但最近的“修正主义”思维路线表明，老龄化“从上层”（即由于低死亡率）的出现，始于二战后不久。我们加入这场辩论，证明从长远来看，死亡率影响人口年龄结构，从而影响老龄化，其程度超出了人们通常认为的范围。通过从欧洲、北美和大洋洲八个人口的人类死亡率数据库中获取尽可能早（某些情况下可达 1820 年）的数据，并应用协整分析，我们表明，在这些国家观察到的年轻人、成年人和老年人比例的大部分历史变化可以仅源自生存变化，忽略了生育率和移民。