Grim statistics on retirement age and life expectancy

[Tim]

Not that I pay much attention to statistics like this, which are just a bunch of unreliable numbers. But this is a US study and they lead very different lives to the average UK citizen, so it's moot.

I retired at 57 so my odds look good, but I still think it's tosh. When I started my career I was told that people in my profession died on average 5 years after retirement, so statistically I've got 2 years left . . . who knows. I do know a lot of people who fit that statistic and died within that 5 year span, but they were smokers/drinkers/unfit and overweight.

Has that study taken any of those factors into account?

It's nonsense unless it's a clinical trial, carried out with a control set and it has to take into account each individual lifestyle as well, which is virtually impossible so it means nothing.

Just chill and enjoy your life and if you're worried about longevity don't sweat over Google articles, but do look at your diet, fitness, sleeping patterns and relaxation. Get those right and your chances improve dramatically. You can still get run over by a bus though

[Marco]

poorer people from poorer areas live shorter lives; its a statistic. now it could be because of numerous causes. i would suggest, if you quite like your job, then be wary of giving it up too early, especially if its not "too much for you". A lot of folk who retire, die early, often through boredom.
Im severely disabled and its root causes are too much hard work. i should have taken my mother's advice and done less, but i enjoyed it, and needed the money so i did it. Living a long life, if your not happy isnt something to be desired. Retire if you can afford to and live a lower standard of life, enjoying the little things in life, like getting up when you want, and laughing at the rat race etc. If you enjoy it, then dont retire as it can kill you.
Trust me, i know of plenty folk forced to retire that died early, and plenty like me who went on too long doing more than they were able. Money aint everything.

In a nutshell, this ^^^

As ever, there's a balance to be had, but personally, as long as the bills were being paid, and I could live comfortably and still enjoy myself to a degree, I'd rather have less money and more TIME to do the things I wanted to do (spend more time with family and loved ones, engage in a hobby, take on a less demanding job, even if the pay was less, etc), than have more money than I knew what to do with, but no TIME to enjoy it!

And if retiring early meant downgrading my lifestyle somewhat, to achieve it, i.e. selling a bigger house and moving into a smaller one (or to a less expensive area), having only one car instead of two, not needing to own the latest iPhone, or whatever reasonable steps it took to reduce life-threatening stress levels, and achieve a better work/life balance, I'd do it in the blink of an eye!

Why not? None of us knows how long we have on this earth, so why not spend at least some of it doing things that actually make us HAPPY, and when the grim reaper calls, leave with as little regrets as possible... Than working your fingers to the bone (yet financially, still remaining heavily in debt) - and in the end - for WHAT?

Also, aside from the very valid health arguments put forward from working too hard, if you have a partner and/or kids, what impact on your relationship with them is working all the hours under the sun having? What good is being able to provide for your children, if they grow up hardly knowing you because you were always at work...? In the long run, that often causes resentment more than anything else....

And what about your wife or partner?

It seems that some people are married to their jobs, more than their partners(!) but perhaps that situation suits them, if there's not much love in their relationships to start with... Going to work is probably a good way of deflecting attention from an unhappy marriage/relationship, and so an escape from what awaits you at home. Perhaps that's why there are so many 'workaholics'?

However, for everyone else:

If you're both working all the time, simply to fund a lifestyle that in reality you can ill afford (because if you could comfortably afford it, then you wouldn't have to work all the hours under the sun to fund it), how do you find time to have a relationship, and simply relax and enjoy each other's company, free from having to think about anything else??

No wonder there are so many divorces these days, fractious family relationships and maladjusted (often suicidal) children, starved of much needed parental love.... Why? Because we're all working too bloody hard, getting stuck in an unhealthy (and also unfulfilling) rut, and losing focus on *ultimately* what REALLY matters in life!!

More thoughts on this later.

Marco.

[tapid]

"there are lies, damned lies and statistics"

I retired early nearly ten years ago and I'm glad I did, although I could possibly do with more productive ways to occupy my time, you get a bit blase' about it all after a while.

I do think there's an element of truth in the idea that people die earlier the longer they work, I've seen examples. On that basis though, my wife should live forever, she's never done a stroke of decent work in her life .

Yeah the mother in law s been like that the 34 years I've known her, but by carefully budgeting she s lived off the state quite nicely !

[walpurgis]

I agree with Marco. Folks are best concerning themselves with how they live, not when or how they may cease to.

[Macca]

Interesting. Just yesterday I was doing a back of the envelope calculation to see if I could retire at 53. Not easy as no pension. I reckon I could do it but I'd be properly poor and I'd have to do a bit of hustling to bridge the gap but that's no big deal.

I do work for a big US corp but not in management. I don't think my job is stressful but dragging my raggedy ass in there every day is starting to get old. So I might go for it. Could always go back to work if it got desperate. Some of the managers do seem pretty stressed but it tends to be the ones who are out of their depth in management but won't accept the fact.

If the figures presented are based on the pension actuaries then should probably be taken seriously - if they don't get the actuaries right then they go broke so there's a fair incentive to be accurate. Even if the article is just a click bait for the pension funds (which it is).

[mikmas]

If the figures presented are based on the pension actuaries then should probably be taken seriously - if they don't get the actuaries right then they go broke so there's a fair incentive to be accurate.

None of the 'facts' presented in this article should be taken even remotely seriously in relation to personal pension decisions. It is so utterly flawed and skewed in its conclusions that it doesn't even warrant a moments consideration in that context.
All the superficial data revealed by the 'study' does is to provide a basis for a more comprehensive and accurate examination of likely contributory factors and corroborative relationships that might indicate causal likelihoods.

The origin and motivations for the original data scan need to be treated with a very high level of scepticism - the pension companies have early retirement schemes to flog and are well served by promoting paranoia inducing bullshit such as this in their marketing scams (which also include paying bloggers and vloggers to push these kind of bullshit articles)

As you say - clickbait ... and of the worse kind.

[mikmas]

Has that study taken any of those factors into account?

It's nonsense unless it's a clinical trial, carried out with a control set and it has to take into account each individual lifestyle as well, which is virtually impossible so it means nothing.

Just chill and enjoy your life and if you're worried about longevity don't sweat over Google articles, but do look at your diet, fitness, sleeping patterns and relaxation. Get those right and your chances improve dramatically. You can still get run over by a bus though

Absolutely - 100% agreement

[Sherwood]

The guy who wrote this crap should know better having been mathematically trained. Clearly, written for cash not enlightenment!

[Macca]

None of the 'facts' presented in this article should be taken even remotely seriously in relation to personal pension decisions.

But in more general terms it has a point. The choice between working yourself into the ground until you're 67 or packing it in early and being poor but happy. I've sort of got used to having a decent disposable income and buying whatever I like and it worries me that if I continue I'll become dependant on that and won't be able to cope with being poor again. So it might be better to do it sooner rather than later.

[struth]

unless you have a big nest egg or a good plan, 53 is too young. its a long time and the wrong time to be poor if you dont have to. imo of course.