Early Retirement Equals Earlier Death?

We all can only dream of early retirement. It sounds wonderful: financial security and time to do whatever you want. Is early retirement a healthy idea, though? A study at Shell Oil company looked into that very question and found that people who retired at age 55 had almost twice the risk of death compared to people who retired at age 60. Here are the details:

• The study examined the survival of 839 employees who retired at 55 and 1929 employees who retired at 60 and compared them to 900 employees who retired at 65. Women made up only 11% of the study population.
• The link between early retirement and early death was greater for men. In fact, men who retired at 55 had an 80% greater increase risk than women who retired at 55.
• People who retired at 60 were no different than people who retired at age 65, in terms of the overall risk of death.
• It could be that people who retire at 55 have poor health (and therefore chose early retirement).

Retiring at Age 60, Not a Problem for Health

Another study also found that retiring at age 60 seemed to not impact health. In the Whitehall II study researchers follow British Civil Servants. This gives them access to a huge database of health and demographic information. There have been hundreds of studies from this database and one of them looked at the impact of retiring at age 60 on health. Here’s what they found:

People who retired at age 60 had the same physical and mental health function as people similar to them who were still working. In fact, the retirees’ mental health improved somewhat after retiring. So according to this study, retiring at age 60 is either not harmful or even good for you.

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