Work Longer....live a longer, healthier life!

Another argument to keep Boomers in the workforce longer

Ray Williams Aug 15, 2011 – 12:41 PM ET | Last Updated: Aug 15, 2011 4:32 PM ET

Since the Great Depression, a commonly held perspective on the good life is that we can all look forward to retiring from the workforce. We would be relaxed and healthier away from the stresses of work. But there are a few flaws in that argument.

For one thing, retirement, like pensions, was an invention of the Great Depression, intended to deal with the problem of unemployment. Before the 1930s, the concept of retirement didn’t exist. For the most part, people now view retirement in a different light all together. The American Association for Retired People reported on a 2008 survey that 70% of workers plan to continue working past retirement age. Since the recession, that number likely has increased.

Recent research questions the assumption that stopping work will improve your health. Researchers, led by Mo Wang, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, studied the health of 12,000 men and women between the ages of 51 and 61, using data from the U.S. National Health and Retirement Study. The research study was published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

Among the conclusions were: Compared to those who quit working altogether, those people who described themselves as officially retired but who continued to work part-time or in temporary positions were less likely to be diagnosed with diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, lung disease, heart disease, stroke, psychiatric problems and arthritis. Those who worked at least part-time were also less likely to show signs of functional decline, or inability to perform the activities of daily living. The findings were true for all categories of age, sex, financial status, education and physical and mental health before retirement.

This study supported much earlier ones, including a study at a major hospital that showed people who worked after retirement lived longer and a Yale University study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, that reported being laid off or fired close to retirement or old age had a devastating effect on an individual’s health, with particular reference to stroke. The American Geriatrics Society reported that people over age 65 who worked as volunteers had half the death risk of those who did not.

The benefits of continuing to work, other than financial resources, are social interaction, and opportunities to use your brain, the University of Maryland researchers reported. And perhaps most important of all, people who continue to work past retirement age have a sense of purpose, which has a positive impact on their health. A final argument for continuing to work is the cost of health services for aging Baby Boomers, the bulk of the population.