Given Americans’ dismal record of saving for retirement, many will likely need to work past the traditional retirement age in order be financially secure once they do finally leave the nine-to-five. Working longer allows them to build up their nest egg and put off tapping Social Security as long as possible.
A new study suggests that there could be one more bonus: A longer life.
Researchers at Oregon State University published a study that found healthy adults who worked just one year past age 65 had an 11 percent lower risk of death, even after accounting for demographic, lifestyle and health issues.
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To avoid having the study skewed by the population of people who retire early due to health factors, the researchers broke workers into two groups: those who left work due to those reasons and those who said health didn’t play a role in their retirement.
“The healthy group is generally more advantaged in terms of education, wealth, health behaviors and lifestyle, but taking all of those issues into account, the pattern still remained,” OSU Associate Professor Robert Stawski said in a statement. “The findings seem to indicate that people who remain active and engaged gain a benefit from that.”
Nearly half of today’s retirees say they have either worked or plan to work during their retirement years, according to a 2014 report by Merrill Lynch and Age Wave. Still, while more workers say they’d like to work longer, the median age for retirement in America remains 62.
