The longer you work, the sooner you die

[cons]

DUH!!

A good article, nonetheless, for us young dreamers. Looks like 49.9 is the 'sweet spot'.

 

[MichaelB]

This is the study and author

Optimum Strategies for Creativity and Longevity By Sing Lin, Ph.D

This is the analysis

The Boeing experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 18 months, on average, prior to death. Similarly, the Lockheed experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 17 months, on average, prior to death. Dr. David T. Chai indicated that the Bell Labs experience is similar to those of Boeing and Lockheed based on the casual observation from the Newsletters of Bell Lab retirees. A retiree from Ford Motor told Dr. Paul Tien-Lin Ho that the experience from Ford Motor is also similar to those in Boeing and Lockheed.

This is the conclusion

The hard-working late retirees probably put too much stress on their aging body-and-mind such that they are so stressed out to develop various serious health problems that forced them to quit and retire. With such long-term stress-induced serious health problems, they die within two years after they quit and retire.
On the other hand, people who take early retirements at the age of 55 tend to live long and well into their 80s and beyond. These earlier retirees probably are either wealthier or more able to plan and manage their various aspects of their life, health and career well such that they can afford to retire early and comfortably.

I get the feeling there is a flaw in the analysis, but because there is no data, it’s hard to say exactly what it is.

 

[REWahoo]

This analysis has been discussed many times on the forum - search the forum for "Boeing" and you'll get lots of hits. Here's a thread from 2004 dissecting the many flaws in the analysis:

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/retire-early-live-longer-14402.html

 

[MichaelB]

This analysis has been discussed many times on the forum - search the forum for "Boeing" and you'll get lots of hits. Here's a thread from 2004 dissecting the many flaws in the analysis:

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/retire-early-live-longer-14402.html

Good link. Thanks

 

[NW-Bound]

This "study" has come up from time to time on the Web, and this forum is no different. I thought I have shared info that this was most likely a hoax. But here's the info again, from Boeing Co. itself.

http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/empinfo/benefits/pension/seminars/Rumor.pdf

Excerpts:

In fact, for those who retired at age 65 and are still alive – the average age is 78. This is higher than the life expectancy at birth recently published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control of 77.2 years.

“The idea that working longer will shorten a Boeing employee’s life expectancy simply isn’t true,” said Julie Curtis, an actuary at Boeing. "I’ve been looking at the data since 1983, and the length of a retiree’s life is unrelated to the age at his or her retirement. Our retirees tend to live a long time no matter how old they are when they retire. If the charts were accurate, we wouldn’t have the large number of retirees that we do (nearly 500,000) and the large amount of pension payments (more than $2 billion a year).”​

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

I would tend to agree that the most creative years one has are between 20 and 30 years old. This is because during that time one is typically single, childless and hold a non-managerial role in a company. Translation - there are less distractions from work, and one can allow one's mind to freely associate and/or think about work issues 24/7/365. After one gets married (or into a relationship), has child(ren) and/or assumes a managerial role, there are numerous forces competing for one's time. Even when alone, one is usually thinking about those same forces, limiting creativity.