Most people retire around age 65. But when people retire at age 66 instead, their mortality rates drop by 11 percent, according to a statistical analysis at Oregon State University, the Harvard Business Review reported.
Chenkai Wu, a PhD student in public health at Oregon State University in Corvallis, worked with professors at OSU and Colorado State University in Fort Collins to assess how age of retirement affects longevity. The researchers examined data from the Health Retirement Study, a longitudinal survey of Americans age 50 and over.
Mr. Wu told Harvard Business Review the research suggests delayed retirement may be the secret to decreased mortality. "What's interesting is that we didn't find any sociodemographic, lifestyle or health factors that affected the relationship between delayed retirement and a lower risk of dying," he said. "When we looked at just the unhealthy retirees in the sample — who accounted for 1,022 of the 2,956 participants — we still found that retiring one year later was associated with a 9 percent lower mortality risk."
However, Mr. Wu clarifies the conclusion to draw from the study is not "retire early, die early; or retire late, die late," according to the report.
"What we really want people to think about is, 'What does work represent?'" Mr. Wu said, according to the report. "There are a lot of social benefits related to working: You're more active, you're more engaged, you're talking with your peers, and so on. Losing those when you retire can be harsh."