Early retirement not linked to longer life
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-21 10:51

Retiring early may give people more time on the golf course or with the grandchildren but it is not associated with living longer, researchers said on Friday.

They found that people who retired at 60 and 65 years old lived to similar ages but those who stopped working at 55, some for health reasons, had higher mortality rates.

"The long-term survival of people who retire at ages 55 or 60 is no better than that of those who retire at 65, especially for those who retire at 55," said Shan Tsai, an epidemiologist with the Shell Oil Company in Houston, Texas, in a report published online by the British Medical Journal.

The researchers studied 3,500 employees at the company's Texas plant who retired at 55, 60 or 65. They monitored their health for 26 years to see if people who stopped working early lived longer.

"On the contrary, mortality improved with increasing age at retirement for people from both high and low economic groups," Tsai added.

Deaths were nearly twice as high in the first 10 years after retirement for people who left work at 55 years old compared to those who worked longer.

The findings confirm the results of earlier research.

"Several studies found lower survival among those retiring early and attributed this to poor health status forcing early retirement," Tsai added.