At 72, I still work about 30 hours a week, but only because I like to. I get a lot out of it - intellectual stimulation, social connection, a sense of identity, the opportunity to contribute to society. At the very least, it keeps me feeling functional.
I'm not alone. Staying on the job longer - into one's 70s, 80s and even beyond - has become increasinglycommon, and this made me wonder whether working past 65 is good for you. What I learned from the latest research is that there are health benefits associated with working longer - if you're lucky enough to have work that you enjoy and want to keep doing.
"Work can be a lifesaver," says Tracey Gendron, chair of the gerontology department at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the book "Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It." "Staying engaged with a professional network keeps us healthy and gives us an extra reason to get up in the morning."
A study of 83,000 older adults from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, conducted over 15 years, compared people who worked past 65 with those who stopped. It suggested that those who kept working were three times as likely to report being in good health and about half as likely to suffer severe health problems such as cancer and heart disease.
Similarly, a 2019 Swedish study, carried out over 22 years, measured the health status of 8,022 people who retired before 65, at 65 or after 65. Researchers estimated that those who still hustled away post-65 were, once retired, 6.8 percent more likely to report better overall health.
In 2023, almost 1 in 5 (19 percent) Americans age 65 and older still worked, more than double the percentage from 35 years ago, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew notes that the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that 21 percent of people 65 and older will be in the labor force in 2032.
"Working in retirement has become the norm, both full- and part-time," says Debra Whitman, AARP's chief public policy officer and author of "The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond."
"People no longer feel old at 65," says Ken Dychtwald, founder and CEO of Age Wave, which provides business consulting related to aging. "This idea that just because you reached a certain birthday means it's time to move off the playing field is getting a well-deserved second look."
Two large-scale studies strongly suggest that working longer may lead to living longer.
In one, researchers looked at 2,956 Americans 50 and older over 18 years and compared those still working with those who had retired. They found that those who postponed retirement one year, from age 65 to 66, saw the risk of death drop 9 to 11 percent over 18 years. The study's conclusion: "Early retirement may be a risk factor for mortality and prolonged working life may provide survival benefits."
In another, researchers in the Netherlands surveyed men ages 62 to 65 and found that those who worked were slightly less likely (2.1 percent) to die over the next five years than those who no longer worked. The investigators extrapolated from this result that if men kept working even longer, they might live an estimated 6 to 8 percent longer over the following five years.
"If it's a matter of choice rather than a financial must, continuing to work can help you hold on to your sense of who you are," says Robert W. Levenson, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a leading researcher on aging. "So you might as well keep doing what might make you, you."
But there is a flip side to the work-health equation. Working as a senior can strain you physically, raising the risk of injury and aggravating chronic conditions such as arthritis. It can also amp up your stress, especially in an intense workplace; disrupt your sleep; and limit time available for leisure.
A 2021 meta-analysis of 51 published studies performed in countries around the world largely contradicts findings that retiring later than usual or never at all is positive for your health. Researchers suggested that retirement "leads to better self‐reported health, less depression, a decrease in healthcare consumption" - and, further, that "late retirement has no effect on mortality" and a "negative or non-significant impact" on self-reported health.
Because most research on the topic is based on self-reporting by older workers, rather than a randomized, controlled trial, it is admittedly difficult to separate causation and correlation in findings, and to nail down whether healthier people tend to work longer, or working longer makes people healthier.
A 2020 Journal of Health Economicspapersynthesized surveys and public records to trace how retirement affects health outcomes. It concluded that retirement "substantially improves" self-reported health and well-being, with individuals less likely to indicate having long-term ailments." Retirees also slept more and experienced less stress and lower pulse rates.
Our attitude toward getting older also figures strongly in whether to keep working.
"What we believe about age can be a decisive factor," says Becca R. Levy, a professor of epidemiology and psychology at Yale University. "When these age beliefs are positive, it can benefit health. But when they're negative, they can harm it."
Working later in life is a privilege belonging largely to white-collar professionals. The well-educated, affluent and already healthy are far and away more likely to keep going past 65. Yet people in physically taxing jobs often leave the workforce before they're financially ready to retire, according to an Economic Policy Institute report.
Disparities involving race and gender are striking, too, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. It ran simulations to estimate how long individuals in certain demographics can expect to keep working. Women at age 50 could expect to work on average 23.9 more years, vs. 21.8 years for men. More than half of Black men with low education levels who were working at 62 were not working at 67.
"If you're in poor health, or in a job with demands that adversely affect your physical or mental health - and have to continue to work for economic reasons - it's much less likely to bring health benefits," says Elizabeth Goyder, a professor of public health at the University of Sheffield. "But those with high-quality, generally nonmanual jobs and good health who choose to continue to work will often enjoy the health, financial and social benefits from later retirement."