Is retirement good or bad for your health?

The last days of summer are a suitable time for a break. The lake, a lawn chair, a park bench, or the couch. People want to relax for a bit, knowing that come September, it is back to the grindstone. That is what work commonly is, a grindstone of labour to make ends meet. It’s tempting, therefore, when the time finally arrives, to make a permanent leap into retirement.

I do not want to get rusty, and you will not catch me sitting idle for long. There is an enormous difference between retiring and changing one’s work. I recommend the latter.

Researchers can design all sorts of studies trying to determine whether retirement is good or bad for health. One study published in the BMJ followed 14,000 workers before and after retirement. Retirement was associated with substantial reductions in mental fatigue, physical fatigue, and depressive symptoms. Sounds good, right? However, retirement did not appear to alter the incidence of major chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or respiratory illness. Too bad.

Indeed, the research is all over the place. Studies have found that retirees become more physically healthy as a result of more time for playing sports and taking other steps towards healthy living. Other studies show deteriorating health.

A 2025 systematic review concluded that retirement is often associated with lower cognitive functioning, faster cognitive decline, and a higher risk of dementia. Although researchers noted that the effects vary depending on education, occupation, and post-retirement activities.

Does engaging in work help maintain brain health? Will leaving work accelerate decline?

Here is the key point. People who retire and pick up something else to do: like another job they truly enjoy, volunteering in their community, taking a course or learning something new, are going to fare better cognitively than those who retire and become disengaged.

There is another important consideration. Retirement is not just a personal decision. In ageing populations, it is also an economic decision that affects all of us.

Take the Canadian situation. The OECD’s Employment Outlook 2025 estimates that Canada could increase growth by mobilizing older workers in good health. Canada currently has an employment rate of about 55% among people aged 60–64.

Another OECD report estimates that workforce ageing accounted for about 10% of Canada’s decline in productivity growth between 2002–07 and 2014–19, partly because older workers are less likely to move between firms and into more productive jobs.

A fascinating finding: firms with a 10% higher-than-average share of workers aged 50+ were 1.1% more productive! The researchers attribute this not only to the productivity of older workers themselves but to the combination of older and younger workers transferring knowledge and experience.

If working with paid income is not your game upon reaching retirement age, you can still be a powerful cog in the economy. In California, for example, researchers found that pension payments to retirees generate an annual $28 billion in economic activity.

Think about it this way. People do better (in their own personal health and as members of society) when they have purpose. Upon reaching retirement age and thereafter, the happiest and healthiest people are those who remain productive.

I do not have any plans for heading out to pasture. I enjoy what my father used to say, “I’ll retire ten years after I’m dead.”

If your circumstances make retirement the right choice, then retire, but do not retire from life. Do not assume that retirement means no work. You may have exactly the skills, experience, and attitude, that a new workplace would value.

This column offers opinions on health and wellness, not personal medical advice.