Job characteristics as risk factors for early retirement due to ill health: The Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (2006-2014)

Antecedents of and experiences with voluntary early exit from working life before the expected retirement age in Sweden

BACKGROUND

In most Western countries, senior workers have increased their participation in the workforce. However, at the same time, early retirement also increases. The reasons behind this early exit from the workforce are still unclear.

OBJECTIVE

This qualitative study aims to explore the antecedents of and experiences with a voluntary exit from working life before the expected retirement age of 65 in Sweden.

METHODS

Data consist of semi-structured interviews with 18 participants who exited working life between the ages of 61-63. In Sweden, these ages are considered as an early exit from working life since, for many years, the expected retirement age has been 65. Qualitative content analysis with an abductive approach was utilized.

RESULTS

The analysis revealed four sub-themes: 1) Health benefits with an early exit from working life (with the categories: own health status, the possibility for recovery time, and avoidance of strain); 2) Having economic conditions that enable an early exit from working life (with the categories: offers from the employer and financial compromises); 3) Social benefits with an early exit from working life (with the categories: enabling more time with my social network and avoidance of unsatisfying social work environment); 4) Self-fulfillment activities during the senior years (with the categories: enabling time for activities beyond work and avoidance of decreased job satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

This variety of antecedents of and experiences with a voluntary early exit from working life before the expected retirement age highlights that the ongoing increased statutory retirement age also increases the risk for extended inequalities among the aging population.

Would It Kill You to Retire? Testing Short/Long Term/Recurrent Effects of Retirement on All-Cause Mortality Risk

This study traced all-cause mortality risk over the course of retirement and tested whether re-retirement impacts mortality risk differently than the first time. The study differentiated retirement on whether prompted by health (health retirement) or not (non-health retirement). Based on data from 1992 to 2016 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the sample consists of 7747 women and 7958 men who were working at the baseline. Adjusting for physical health before/after retirement, the discrete-time logit model found increased mortality risk within the first year of non-health retirement only for men, regardless of physical health changes. Re-retirement did not raise mortality risk further. Furthermore, health retirement increased mortality for men and women but substantially less after their surviving the first year. The findings urge future study to explore non-physical pathways of an immediate mortality increase for men in retirement, as well as the monitoring of population trends in health retirement and its antecedents.

How does job dissatisfaction interact with self-rated health in determining the risk of health-related job loss? Prospective findings from the Health and Employment After Fifty (HEAF) study

OBJECTIVES

Health and job satisfaction are key independent determinants of ability to work to older ages. We investigated the interaction of these two important factors on health-related job loss (HRJL) over 2 years of follow-up comparing male and female older workers.

METHODS

A population sample of adults aged 50-64 years, recruited from 24 English general practices in the Health and Employment After Fifty (HEAF) study, completed questionnaires at baseline with follow-ups at 12 and 24 months. Multiple-record Cox proportional hazards models were performed to explore the main effects of, and potential interactions between, job satisfaction and self-rated health (SRH) as predictors of time to first HRJL.

RESULTS

Of the initial 8134 participants, 5143 were ever in work in the study period. Among men, 5.7% and 14.3% reported job dissatisfaction (those in good and poor SRH, respectively), while among women these percentages were 4.6 and 12.9. HRJL was reported by 106 men and 176 women. Men in good health dissatisfied with their job had a sixfold (HR=6.4; 95% CI 3.3 to 12.4) increased risk of HRJL compared with men satisfied with their job (significant multiplicative interaction). Women dissatisfied with their job were more likely to have an HRJL within 2 years of follow-up irrespective of their SRH.

CONCLUSIONS

SRH and job dissatisfaction have important individual effects on the risk of stopping work for health among older workers. These findings point to the importance of job satisfaction in reducing health-related exit from paid work among older workers.

Job characteristics as risk factors for early retirement due to ill health: The Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (2006-2014)

Objectives

To investigate work‐related factors that contribute to early retirement due to ill health (ERIH) in middle‐aged and elderly people in Korea.

Methods

Data were collected from a sample from the first through the fifth phases of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging which was conducted biennially from 2006 to 2014. ERIH was defined as the retirement of workers due to health problems before their scheduled or regular retirement age as reported in one of the follow‐up surveys. Three broad subdomains of working conditions were examined: work arrangements, physical working conditions, and job satisfactions. Hazard ratios of ERIH were estimated by Cox regression.

Results

Females, older people, unskilled manual workers, and day laborers were more likely to experience ERIH. In adjusted Cox proportional hazard models, the risk for ERIH in male workers was significantly higher among those with the following conditions: high physical demands, awkward posture, dissatisfaction with the working environment, and no industrial compensation insurance or retirement benefits. However, no significant association was found among female participants.

Conclusions

Occupational class, physical working conditions, job satisfaction, and work arrangement were the potential risk factors for ERIH among male workers in Korea. Moreover, our results revealed gender differences in the risk for ERIH.