retirement and early death

Just googled - it's pretty much what I said.

Soontobe - Not sure what goes on in death cafes - believe it or not imported from the States...I have seen them advertised from time to time on local forums. The idea seems to be to bring death back into the mainstream - it used to be a part of daily life, for instance years ago many children died before the age of 5, it was always around and known about. Now people go away to hospital or some place apart to die, it is not so much part of our general consciousness. Not having much success with an explanation here - google it?

No, Advent is about a coming birth!

Appropriate for Advent-Death/Judgement/Heaven and hell

So the danger years are our 70's!! Once you get past 79 you're safe!
I have a theory that 88 is the birthday to skip dread, so many deaths seem to be at that age.
I think anneliz had a good point (15.22) and that we notice what we choose to notice. A bit like when you buy a particular make or colour of car and suddenly everybody seems to be driving one. You notice the one ex-colleague who died not long after retiring but forget the dozens still going strong!
There are all sorts of reasons why statistics can mislead us, another example is the % survival rates at 1, 5 and 10 years for certain illnesses. Other factors come into play and while the figures may be accurate, they cannot be used predictively.
"More or Less" on Radio 4 every week explains this sort of thing very well.

This may sound strange, but during my daily perusal of the deaths column of my local paper, it struck me that the majority of people who had died were either under 70, or over 80. Some days, I have counted, and worked out the percentages, roughly, and it really does seem to follow this pattern. The number who died in their 70's tends to be under 20%. Maybe it's just where I live!

I was buying into your first paragraph.
I had wondered what part adrenaline plays in things.
I hadnt heard about the gulags situation.

death cafes?

Well, IMHO, it's people who have had very stressful jobs. The adrenaline (or whatever)has kept them going for so long and suddenly no adrenaline so they collapse. Famous Russian author novel - people in the gulags who kept on on a thread till the day they were released and then died. Even if the job was not stressful retirement would be a shock to the system.

Locally we have death cafes - not that I would ever go to one - where people discuss death. The subject has become taboo even though we all know it's going to happen. I empty the odd cupboard now and then, burn a few old letters...

Well, I'm taking early retirement, aged 58, at the end of Jan 16. I've eased myself into it by going down to 3 days a week, a year ago. I hope to have a long, healthy and happy retirement! Bound to have - I'm gonna to be looking after 3 DGC!

Sorry I haven't read the whole thread but at the risk of repetition life expectancy is longer the earlier you retire. I retired at 56!

When DH retired the actuaries figures showed that the younger you were when retiring the longer you enjoyed retirement. With the increasing of the retirement age and the way in which people are generally living longer nowadays it will be interesting to see how this affects the actuarial figures - totally skewed I expect!

DH has an ambition to be drawing his pension for longer than he was paying into it - I shall help him all I can!

I also agree with the point made by Monica - that sometimes people take early retirement due to ill health and therefore die early due to their illness - but not everyone necessarily knows they are retiring because they are unwell.

There is a statistical phenomenon where events appear to be more common than they actually are because we focus on certain categories of event - in this case early death after retirement.
If you sit and think hard and count up the cases of people you know who have retired and NOT died soon after it puts it in perspective.
Also, truly random events do tend to occur in clusters, so if you say there is an average of one car accident per month at particular junction, this can mean there are three accidents in one month then none for several months, but it's still, on average, one accident per month.
So you might get several deaths soon after retirement in a short space of time, but then none for ages.

DH lecturer, me, nurse both retired at 60 and have had 20 years of enjoyable retirement. We are so fortunate

I had to take early retirement at 54 years of age to spend 24 years as a full time Carer, at the time for £39 per week. Touch wood I have had a very good run healthwise with no problems at all and am now 81, still fit and healthy although on my own now. I had a stressful job plus nothing as lonely or stressful as being thrust into Caring and watch a loved one fall apart before your eyes.

I can only talk for teachers but the general rule is that the earlier you retire the longer you'll have left! Retired teachers always look about ten years younger after the first six month detoxing. Go for it! I retired at 55 three years ago and I haven't looked back. I might be a bit poorer but I feel like a new person.

Excellent point MOnica

As someone who has worked on statistics, statistics are fine if you know where they came from and how they were gathered, but newspapers and individuals will quote statistics out of context.

I think some people who retire early do so for medical reasons, which would suggest that their life expectancy was limited when they retired. Possibly those working to 65 are healthier. Several friends and acquaintances retired under the age of 65 for medical reasons and, sadly, all died around the age of 70

From the BBC article:
A paper attributed to the aircraft-maker Boeing shows that employees who retire at 55 live to, on average, 83. But those who retire at 65 only last, on average, another 18 months.
The "Boeing study" has been quoted by newspapers, magazines and pundits. It's circulated on the internet for years. The problem with it is that Boeing itself says it's simply not true
Putting Boeing to one side, then, is there any other evidence which might support the idea that retiring early prolongs life? Surprisingly, perhaps, the truth may be the precise opposite: the later you retire, the longer you live

Epidemiologists at the oil firm Shell carried out a study of past employees in the US, which found that mortality was slightly earlier - on average - for staff who retired at 55, than for those who continued working to 65

It does rather look as if you can prove anything by statistics, the problem is that the Boeing "statistics" would appear to be not only anecdotal, but fallacious.
But if people say it often enough, somebody (probably on Facebook) will attempt to convince everybody that is true.
Remember, there are 3 kinds of lies - "Lies, damn lies and statistics"

Thank you Alea.
I agree with you.

Soontobe he was a GP- the statistics were from the actuarial life insurance companies statistics.

I followed up your link soontobe and thought this bit extremely interesting, it seems to contradict the idea that earlier retirement is automatically a good thing.
If the thought of an extra decade at work is just too much, then another interesting aspect of research by Steven Baxter of Club Vita is that much shorter periods of work can also significantly improve life expectancy. For example, men who retire at 65 rather than 60 live an average of 7.5 months longer, while women who delay retirement by the same period live an extra 6.5 months

Statistics can be very misleading as they can "put the cart before the horse".
If you can afford to retire early chances are you are better off, in a job with a pension so you do not have to wait for your state pension, your job may be less physically taxing than a bricklayer, steelworker or labourer (even allowing for stress)and in so many ways the odds are on your side , probably better nutrition, health care and an awareness of the influence of lfestyle choices. So, provided you are also lucky (and don't get knocked down by a bus) you do stand a better chance of living to a ripe old age.

For those of us who are still married,and DH is either retired, semi-retired or still working, I recommend having a ' full marriage' like the Carsons! This will either keep you both enjoying life, or go out with a bang.

Your first paragraph especially M0nica, is ringing bells.