Retiring Early and Living Longer – Men responding to the early retirement offer were 2.6 percentage points less likely to die over the next five years

You may not need another reason to retire early, but I’ll give you one anyway: It could lengthen your life.

That’s the thrust from various research in recent years, and also from a 2017 study in the journal Health Economics.

In that study, Hans Bloemen, Stefan Hochguertel and Jochem Zweerink — all economists from the Netherlands — looked at what happened when, in 2005, some Dutch civil servants could temporarily qualify for early retirement.

Only those at least 55 years old and with at least 10 years of continuous service with contributions to the public sector pension fund were eligible. Men responding to the early retirement offer were 2.6 percentage points less likely to die over the next five years than those who did not retire early. (Too few women met the early retirement eligibility criteria to be included in the study.)

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at The Connection Between Retiring Early and Living Longer – The New York Times