Do I need to multiply (qx*lx) by 5 to calculate dx for 5 year age intervals? Or does qx apply to the whole interval?
Thanks!
Charles, great question and love that you are starting this early! The short answer is no. Since the population of xl is for 5 years, it basically is applying that probability of death evenly over that time period/group of people, so it's giving you the number of people who died in the 5 year period. Not sure if this helps answer your question, but I did a little math example below to show that you get the same results:
| probability | population (xl) | Deaths | |
| Version 1 (each individual year) | 0.05 | 1000 | 50 |
| 0.05 | 1000 | 50 | |
| 0.05 | 1000 | 50 | |
| 0.05 | 1000 | 50 | |
| 0.05 | 1000 | 50 | |
| 250 | |||
| Version 2= 5 years all together) | 0.05 | 5000 | 250 |
That totally helps to answer my question! Thanks so much for the detailed response!