Accepted wisdom has always been that people who retire early live longer. But is that really the case?

One strand of research, by longevity analysts Club Vita, suggests the opposite. Its analysis of the records of more than one million pensioners in occupational schemes suggested that for every year that members delayed retirement between the ages of 60 and 70, average life expectancy increased by approximately one month.

Now, a cross-sectoral collaboration between academics at the University of Glasgow and pensions consultancy Hymans Robertson, which owns Club Vita, has received funding to examine that very question and other issues around retirement choices and longevity. The two-year project will link scheme experience data with NHS patient records to identify factors that affect life expectancy.

The study comes at an opportune time: due to improvements in life expectancy, an increasing proportion of the population are now in retirement, putting state, occupational and private pension schemes under increasing and unsustainable pressure.
For many, postponing retirement seems the obvious solution. But there is also a recognition that there is currently insufficient information about the factors that encourage or discourage people from retiring later – and the health and wealth implications of such decisions.

“It is likely that both the decision making and outcomes vary according to the socio-economic status of the individual. Therefore, encouraging people to retire later in life may impact on both health and wealth inequalities. Understanding these issues is essential to informing the actions of policy-makers and employers,” said Dr Daniel Mackay, a senior lecturer in public health who is the University of Glasgow’s lead researcher in the project “Exploring the impact of pensions on working lifetimes and subsequent longevity”.

The project has received a research grant worth £592,000 – 80% of which comes from the Medical Research Council – and a further £402,000 from Hymans Robertson, whose clients include private and public sector managers and trustees, corporate sponsors and financial institutions.

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For more information contact Liz Buie in the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 2702 or email Liz.Buie@glasgow.ac.uk

First published: 29 January 2014