A recent study has found that retiring early could send people early to the grave. The findings suggest that working past the age of 65 years old could add more years onto a person's life.
The study showed that retiring later in life offers a lower risk of death from all causes by 11 percent, according to Daily Mail. People who also saw themselves as unhealthy are also more likely to live longer.
Although the results of the study may not apply to everybody, working brings plenty of social and economic benefits that could extend the length of a person's life, according to Chenkai Wu, a doctoral student and lead author of the study from Oregon State University. The lead author of the study explains that since people in the U.S. are more flexible when it comes to retirement, data from the U.S. was used.
Researchers gathered data from 2,956 retirees filed with the Healthy Retirement Study from 1992 to 2010. The study is a long-term research of adults based in the U.S. by the University of Michigan, which was funded by the National Institute of Aging.
Researchers divided the individuals into two groups of healthy and unhealthy participants. Two-thirds of the group was deemed healthy while a third was deemed unhealthy.
During the 18-year study, about 12 percent of healthy participants and 25.6 percent of unhealthy participants died. However, those who worked a year longer after retirement had a lower risk of death by 11 percent.
Even those who were deemed unhealthy who worked a year longer had a lower risk of death by 9 percent. The results of the study showed that working a year longer has a positive impact on a person's mortality rates regardless of their status of health. Published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the findings indicate that people who remain active and engaged are at an advantage, according to Robert Stawski, associate professor and senior author of the paper.
In a similar study attributed to the Boeing, employees who retire at age 55 live to an average age of 83 years old. But those who retire at the age of 65 years old live for an additional 18 months, according to BBC.
The inspiration behind the study came after China's mandatory laws that require men to retire by age 60. Women, on the other hand, ARE mandated to retire by age 55. Wu explains that since most research has been focused on the economic impacts of delaying retirement, this study looked at the health impacts.
