Research Highlight: Does retirement increase risk of depression, or protect from it?

Retirement is a major life transition, which usually involves both opportunities and challenges for mental and physical health. Researchers have attempted to understand the impact retirement has on both physical and mental health, with mixed findings. Partly, it is often difficult to untangle whether retirement led to poor health, or poor health led to retirement. So there has not been real consensus on the impact of retirement on health and wellbeing. 

A recent publication in Epidemiology and Psychiatric Science reported findings from a meta-analytic review of 41 studies, examining the relationship between retirement and depressive symptoms. Meta-analysis is a statistical process that allows researchers to compile and analyze data from multiple studies, and is useful for exploring findings and identifying trends across multiple studies. So while there were mixed findings among the studies that were included in this review, pooling them together revealed a generally protective effect of retirement on the risk of depression.

“Pooled data suggested that retirement reduces by nearly 20% the risk of depression; such estimates got stronger when limiting the analysis to longitudinal and high-quality studies…”

Furthermore, while it is often assumed that men have a more difficult time with retirement than women, the authors did not find significant differences between genders in their risk of depression in retirement. This supports our own findings in reviewing research on experiences with retirement adjustment.

Other individual characteristics and circumstances, however, may play a role in the relationship between retirement and risk of depression. For instance, being pushed to retire involuntarily is consistently linked to more difficulty with retirement, and the authors in this meta-analysis also report retirement having greater impact on depressive symptoms with involuntary retirement. Additional characteristics of the retirement transition, job characteristics (e.g., time pressure, workload and physical demand), and access to resources are also likely to play a role in this association. So while the results of this meta-analysis paint a generally positive picture for retirees, there is of course a great deal of variation between people and their retirement experiences.

How might retirement protect against depression?

Retirement usually leads to increased free time, reduced stress, and opportunities for better sleep and exercise. So of course these factors may clearly contribute to improvements in mental health. It may also be that, at least in some studies, retirees are compared against those who need to continue to work for financial reasons, and perhaps financial stress is putting them at greater risk of depression.

While many people plan to continue working because they enjoy it, a significant portion of workers nearing retirement age will have to continue working for financial reasons. A 2017 survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that among workers who plan to work in retirement or past age 65, larger proportions do so because of financial reasons (83%). Only 62% of workers were confident that they would be able to fully retire with a comfortable lifestyle, and 52% reported fearing that they would outlive their savings.

Looking across time: Different trajectories for wellbeing in retirement

While it is encouraging to see research findings that point to the benefits of retirement, more work needs to be done to untangle the different trajectories for retirement—i.e., different patterns of change in wellbeing over time—and the factors that are associated with them. Mo Wang began looking at such trajectories, and identified three distinct patterns of change in wellbeing in large samples of retirees. The majority of retirees experienced little change in wellbeing, some experienced a temporary decline in wellbeing, and a smaller number of retirees experienced an increase in wellbeing. Viewing retirement experiences as diverse and evolving, rather than positioning it as purely good or bad, allows us to focus on individual circumstances and characteristics that shape this chapter in life after work.

At Retirement Life Plan, our coaching programmes and courses for coaches/professionals are based on research insights such as these, so that we can better support the wellbeing of retirees. Whether you are preparing for retirement yourself, or working with pre-retirees, we have solutions to support you.

Research Highlight: Social Involvement and Physical Health

Retirement can be an opportunity to improve health, with more time for (better) sleep, eating healthier, and exercise. In fact, maintaining health is a top priority for retirees, next to finances. But studies are starting to suggest that we need to look beyond diet and exercise for living a long and healthy life in retirement.

A 2016 study by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia found that retirees’ social involvement was comparable to physical exercise in terms of its association with physical health and mortality.* These researchers compared the number of social groups both before and after retirement: “In showing that it is group memberships following (rather than prior to) retirement that determine long-term life and health quality, findings also indicate that group memberships play a unique role in the transition to retirement by affecting people's health and quality of life once they cease formal employment.”

We know that social involvement is a critical part of general wellbeing, and now we are seeing more and more evidence of the impact it has on physical health (including brain health). With so much of our time spent at work, our social lives tend to also revolve around work. This means that, with retirement, we need to seriously consider changes to social networks and the quality of social interactions, in order to maintain or improve wellbeing following retirement. For some, retirement will mean leaving behind toxic relationships and having more time for healthy and supportive relationships. For others, it will mean leaving behind relationships that have very much been a part of one’s sense of community, belonging, and sense of identity.

At Retirement Life Plan, our research-based programmes take a deep dive into issues such as this, to ensure that the transition to retirement is about supporting enjoyment and wellbeing. Whether you are preparing for retirement yourself, or working with pre-retirees, we have solutions to support you.

*Steffens, N. K., Cruwys, T., Haslam, C., Jetten, J., & Haslam, S. A. (2016). Social group memberships in retirement are associated with reduced risk of premature death: Evidence from a longitudinal cohort study. BMJ Open, 6 (2). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010164