HOUSTON, Oct. 21 - Early retirement may translate into early mortality, at least for those 60 or younger, say researchers here.
Action Points
- <LI class=APP>Explain to patients contemplating early retirement that this big company study found that retiring at age 55 was associated with an almost two-fold greater risk of dying compared with employees who postponed retirement until their 60s.
- Explain that although poor health was considered a possibility for the higher mortality rate among younger retirees, the authors did not have the data to determine if there was a direct and significant association. However, retiring at age 60 did not have a mortality benefit when compared with retirement at age 65.
In a prospective cohort study of thousands of employees who worked at Shell Oil, the investigators found that embarking on the Golden Years at age 55 doubled the risk for death before reaching age 65, compared with those who toiled beyond age 60,
Failing health might have played a role in the younger retirees' higher mortality, said Shan P. Tsai, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Shell Health Services, according to the report in the
British Medical Journal.
However, data were not available to assess directly whether poor health was a significant factor, and it is not clear why continued employment led to longer life, the researchers wrote.
Gender made a difference. The risk of dying early was 80% greater for men than for women, the researchers said.
Interestingly, the researchers discovered that during the first five years of retirement, the mortality rate for employees who retired at age 60 was similar to that of those who retired at age 65 (hazard ratio 1.06, 95% CI 0.92 to 1.22).
The notion that early retirement means less stress and a more relaxed lifestyle has fueled the belief that retiring young boosts longevity, Dr Tsai and colleagues wrote. However, these results indicate the opposite: Mortality rates improved with an older retirement age.
The study included men and women who retired at ages 55, 60, and 65 or who were actively working at ages 55 or 60 between January 1, 1973, and December 31, 2003.
In the main analysis, the researchers reviewed the survival outcomes of 839 employees who retired at age 55 and 1,929 employees who worked until age 60 and were still alive at age 65. These outcomes were compared with 900 employees who retired at 65. Women made up only about 11% of the total study population.
Overall, 137 workers who retired by age 55 died by age 65, while 98 workers who retired at age 60 died by age 65, the researchers reported. After adjusting for sex, the year the participant entered the study, and socioeconomic status, the researchers concluded that employees who retired at age 55 had almost double the mortality risk of those who continued working into their 60s (hazard ratio 1.89, 95% confidence interval 1.58 to 2.27).
Workers were divided into either high or low socioeconomic groups. Higher socioeconomic status appeared to permit earlier retirement. However, low socioeconomic status turned out to be a risk factor for workers who retired at 55. Employees in the high socioeconomic status category who retired at 55 had a 20% greater risk of dying (hazard ratio 1.21, 95% CI, 0.88-1.67), whereas poorer employees had nearly a 60% increased mortality risk (hazard ratio 1.58, 95% CI, 1.15-2.18).
Waiting until age 60 or older to retire appeared to make little difference in the risk of death. "Mortality did not differ for the first five years after retirement at 60 compared with continuing to work at 60," the researchers reported (hazard ratio 1.04, 95% CI, 0.82-1.31). And in comparing retirement at ages 60 and 65, death rates were similar, Dr. Tsai's team wrote.
