Postpone Retirement for Your Health

Jim from Washington posted 8 months ago:

As a retiree at 55 from an eligible retirement plan, I don't know if I'm considered and "early retiree" but do know that I would gladly give up 1.8 months of my latter life for every day I have been away from my previous career!

DAB from Oregon posted 8 months ago:

There's not enough info about the study to really comment, much less conclude retirement causes poorer health or decide to work longer to be healthier.
To ask the obvious: How does "being retired" lead to "doubling the number of years spent in retirement"? Is this just sloppy reporting?
How was the design & data handled to remove the effects of age?
Were working & non working stress and physical activity levels evaluated?
Were systematic dietary changes evaluated?
Without any description of the study design and such questions and others reported, its potentially misleading to publish such summaries about any study. I expect better than that from AAII.

Jonathan Silverberg from New York posted 8 months ago:

Couldn't agree with you more, DAB...

Jeff from Oregon posted 8 months ago:

As the Brits would say, "this study is a muddle." Unless, you can look at the underlying methodology and data, I don't think you can draw much of any conclusion about it. It could be, not surprisingly, that on the average somewhat healthier people are able to work longer.

I'm pushing 68 and will retire in a few months. I don't think I'm a great deal healthier than my friends who've been dropping out of the workforce at a lesser age than me.

Usually, AAII has informative articles. This one misses the mark badly.

Charles Rotblut from Illinois posted 8 months ago:

The study this article was based on can be found at http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/media-coverage/work-longer-live-healthier

Coincidentally, Bloomberg has an editorial about the topic of retirement health this morning:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-11/retirement-will-kill-you.html

What I have not seen is a study distinguishing between staying employed, being retired and very active, and simply being active. My guess is that the first two would both contribute to better health, while a decrease in activity would lead to worse health outcomes. (And yes, I realize poor health does lead to less activity.)

-Charles Rotblut

Joseph Novotny from Wyoming posted 8 months ago:

hello

Victor Stankevich from North Carolina posted 8 months ago:

As already noted, the study is missing too many critical variables; e.g., what type of work did the subjects do? how old were they when they stopped working? what was their sense of purpose? what did they do in retirement? how did men and women differ?

Scott Ries from Kentucky posted 8 months ago:

Having grown up in a retiree area (Florida), and as a current psychotherapist in a psychiatry department, I have noticed that there are two types of states of mind of retirees: one group who sees retirement as an opportunity to pursue new things, and another group who sees retirement as the last significant thing that happens before death. Not suprisingly, the former group holds up well, both physically and mentally, while the latter group tends towards depression and lethargy.