Worked to death? Not likely

Contrary popular belief, people who take early retirement do not live any longer than those who retire later -- and in fact they are likelier to die sooner, according to a statistical study.

Researchers at US pensioners with Shell Oil found that those who retired at 55 faced a much higher risk of going into an early grave than those who carried on working until 60 or 65.

The study, published online by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), involved 3,500 Shell employees working in the state of Texas who had retired at 55, 60 or 65.

Participants monitored for up to 26 years to assess whether there was any survival advantage of early

retirement.

The research team had details about the mortality of these pensioners, but not about their reasons for retirement.

To take into account that bad health could prompt some people to leave the workforce at 55, they leveled the playing field by assessing the mortality of all retirees from the age of 65.

The reasoning for this: someone who is catastrophically ill may well die soon after retirement, whereas someone who lives 10 years beyond retirement is likely to be in better shape.

They also adjusted for factors such as sex and socio-economic status.

They found that workers who retired at 55 lived until the age of 72 on average. Those who quit at 60 died at the average age of 76. And those who stopped working at 65 lived on average until 80.

Overall, those likely to die soonest were the ones who retired at 55, were male and were in a low-income group, as defined by their pay grade in the company.

Those who lived longest were women, retired at 65, and from a

high-income group.

"The long-term survival of people who retire early at ages 55 or 60 is no better than that of those who retire at 65, especially for those who retire at 55," the study says.

"On the contrary, mortality improved with increasing age at retirement for people from both high and low

socio-economic grade."

The difference in survival between those who retired between 60 and 65 is considered small and not statistically significant.

The study is published against a background of amplifying debate over retirement in many rich countries, where pension schemes are expected to come under great strain in the coming decades.

The problem is how to meet the

pension demands of the post-World War II baby boomers as they head into

retirement. A dramatic fall in the birth rate in many countries means that these workers are not being replaced

one-for-one by new contributors to

pension schemes.

As a result, governments are juggling with a range of options for meeting pension needs, one of which is to encourage or force people to stay longer in the workforce.

This is being fiercely opposed in some quarters, with the argument being that a longer working life will shorten lifespans.