Freakonomics podcast: Early Retirement Kills...

[Delawaredave5]

Interesting short podcast. Study in Europe about blue collar workers show reduced mortality by 2 months for every year they retire early.

Retirement Kills - WNYC

[Midpack]

On behalf of one vocal camp here, summarizing from another thread:

[sarcasm]If someone else's experience is different than our own, for some it would be wrong to leave it at that. It must be made up stuff, brainwashing, pseudo intellectual psycho babble, conspiracy with no merit...yipes.[/sarcasm]

Just to get that out of the way...

[REWahoo]

Moral: If you continue working until FRA, you'll have more time to regret you weren't able to retire early...

The study sounds like 'pablum for the masses': don't fret you have to work longer due to the downturn in the world economy - it's good for you.

[73ss454]

Yup, I guess it's good to stay nice and safe at work.

[M Paquette]

They called out the Zweimuller study of a Austrian population in particular, as well as another person who commented on mental health. The Zweimuller study notes an increased incidence of cardiovascular problems in male early retirees (ladies, you are safe! The study saw no early retirement impact for you.)

Abstract and summary:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/499.html

The actual paper:
http://www.iew.uzh.ch/wp/iewwp499.pdf


So, it looks like early retirees who start drinking more, smoking more, gain weight, and spend their days watching TV die off sooner than their working cohorts. This shouldn't be terribly surprising.

I notice that among active ER.org participants, there is an ongoing interest in remaining active, and in many cases, folks are engaged in improving their physical condition compared to when they were working. Within this group I suspect we would see an improvement in mortality compared to the working cohort.

Correlation is not causation...
http://xkcd.com/552/

[growing_older]

Quote:

Study in Europe about blue collar workers show reduced mortality by 2 months for every year they retire early.

Now I'm confused. Previous study had shown increased mortality for early retirement. Probably as a result of selection bias, because sick people often stop working earlier and call it retirement. If anyone ever controls for the adverse selection of people with health problems skewing the numbers, I would expect the decrease in stress alone to show better longevity. Until then, I'm sticking with my unscientific notion that doing what I want all day is probably better for me than doing what my boss tells me to do.

[TromboneAl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delawaredave5 Interesting short podcast. Study in Europe about blue collar workers show reduced mortality by 2 months showed that lifespan was reduced two months on average for every year they retire early. Retirement Kills - WNYC

This is why it was confusing.

[marko]

How do Europeans know when they have retired??

Lived there for years...never saw anyone break a sweat.

Thirty five hour workweeks and a day off for strikes/saint's days, vacations, sick time and holidays...lucky to work 3 days a week.

[wishin&hopin]

Die two months earlier per year of leisure? Not a bad trade-off.

Seriously, I think most of us in this forum would be exceptions. One's mental approach to early retirement is everything. Like many here, I don't buy the premise that a life spent at work is a life well lived.

I resist the media's reinforcing of current memes, such as:

Due to lack of savings and poor future returns, going forward most people will need to retire in their 70s. But, hey, that's a good thing, because people need the structure a job provides and live a healthier, longer life when they work until they drop.

Then there's this related one:

The Social Security age needs to go up to align with today's longer average lifespan.

These fit nicely into the U.S.'s deeply ingrained Puritan work ethic, but they ignore the fact that companies have shown no universal inclination to keep employees that long or allow employees to downshift. Having people retire much later is simply not a realistic solution.

And I question whether lifespans are significantly longer once you remove the decrease in infant mortality from the average. I still see plenty of people dying in their 70s (and some even under 50 or 60 due to sudden health issues). You can't live by averages -- literally.

[urn2bfree]

there was another thread on this same topic very recently-(I started it)

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/freakonomics-podcast-retirement-kills-61447.html


someone there posted a link
Fatal attraction? Access to early retirement and mortality | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
to the original article that the podcast referred to and that article clearly showed that they did not correct for health -and that much of the "excess mortality" could very well be from those who were forced to retire, not those like most of us-- who choose to do so.

[unclemick]

Rats! And I thought this thread was going to let me to get down with my bad self - maybe move back to New Orleans and party harder cause times a wasting.

Alas - I guess it's keep up the gym, walk x number of steps per day, learn to love nuts and twigs and keep my BP and LDL/HDL/triglcerides corraled.

Chilli cheese fries and fried seafood platters are history.

If I make my old target of 84.6 + or - .05 I'll be happy.

heh heh heh -

[okapi]

Yeah,and working under the mental stress of a narcissist psychopath with idiot coworkers is real healthy for you.No thanks,I rather take my chances.

[Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by unclemick Rats! And I thought this thread was going to let me to get down with my bad self - maybe move back to New Orleans and party harder cause times a wasting. Alas - I guess it's keep up the gym, walk x number of steps per day, learn to love nuts and twigs and keep my BP and LDL/HDL/triglcerides corraled. Chilli cheese fries and fried seafood platters are history. If I make my old target of 84.6 + or - .05 I'll be happy. heh heh heh -

I wished that DH and I could have met and partied with you in our younger days down in NO. I bet you were a blast!!!

[Hamlet]

I wonder if they adjusted for an obvious selection bias I see.

A lot of people retire early because they have bad health.

I would guess that the pool of men that retire early is probably less healthy than the pool of men that keep working.

[EvrClrx311]

even if this is true, I think I'd gladly take 20 years longer retirement if it means only giving up the last 3 years of my life

[marko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by okapi Yeah,and working under the mental stress of a narcissist psychopath with idiot coworkers is real healthy for you.No thanks,I rather take my chances.

Did we work in the same place??