The term "survivorship" describes the likelihood that an organism will remain alive from one time period to the next. For example, the survivorship of human males in a given country to age 20 might be around 96.5%, while survivorship to age 70 might be 55%.

Age-specific mortality can be illustrated in the form of a survivorship curve that usually yields one of three patterns of survivorship: mortality concentrated at the end of the maximum life span; a constant probability of death for every age group; or high early mortality followed by high survival. Survivorship can also be depicted with a life table showing the number of survivors from a given starting population at specific intervals.