Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Can retirement actually be bad for your health?

The Vancouver Sun reports:
If you're anywhere near retirement age, you probably feel a little envy when you hear about someone who was able to retire early. I certainly have. But perhaps we should think again.

It turns out that retirement can be dangerous for your happiness and even your health, at least in a broad statistical sense.

The evidence comes from a new study published by the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research, a U.S. clearinghouse for some of the best academic research.

It compared thousands of people who had retired with others in the same age group who had not retired. The retirees had substantially more chance of experiencing difficulty with mobility and simple self-care tasks and were more likely to show signs of depression.
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