Think twice—nay, thrice—before claiming your Social Security benefits at age 62. Your life might depend on your decision.
Literally.
That’s because there’s a marked increase in mortality among men who retire at 62 and begin receiving Social Security, according to a fascinating new study that recently was distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Its authors are two economics professors: Maria Fitzpatrick of Cornell University and Timothy Moore of the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The increase in the death rate is quite large, furthermore, particularly among males who retire and claim Social Security at 62: By 20%, according to the study. Among females, in contrast, the data are inconclusive.
To be sure, correlation is not causation, as we remember from Statistics 101. But Fitzpatrick, in an interview, believes that there is a causal link. One of the more telling pieces of evidence of such a link is from the period before it was even possible to claim Social Security as early as age 62. During that earlier period, the researchers found, there was no abnormally high increase in mortality at age 62.
In other words, the unexpectedly large increase in mortality at age 62 begins to show up in the historical record at the very time that individuals were allowed to claim their Social Security benefits at that earlier age. That is compelling circumstantial evidence.
Why would taking early retirement lead to increased mortality? The evidence points to unhealthy changes in life style that often accompany retirement. For example, the professors point to other research that found male “retirees become sedentary, often watching more television.” Tellingly, there appears to be no increase in sedentariness among females after retirement, which may be a reason why there is a lower mortality rate among women who retire at age 62.
Unlike women, furthermore, male retirees in particular also appear to have fewer social interactions after they stop working, which other studies have found to have a negative impact on health. Still other studies have found there to be an increase in tobacco and alcohol use after stopping working.
Read: Drinking too much: one more retirement worry you didn’t need
Now, there is no requirement that you must stop working upon claiming Social Security benefits at age 62. But Fitzpatrick told me approximately a third of those who do claim their benefits at that age do stop working.
Many who hear about this new study will immediately conclude that they should delay claiming Social Security for as long as they can and, if they can’t, to nevertheless continue working—even if part time. And that might be the right thing to do, if working keeps you from engaging in unhealthy behaviors. But the implications of this new study are more nuanced than that, since there are lots of things about retirement that potentially could have a positive impact on your health.
In short, retirement will have a negative impact on your health if you become more sedentary, have fewer social interactions, increase tobacco or alcohol use, or engage in any of a number of other unhealthy behaviors. But it could be positive for your health, if for example you become more physically active or take more time to think carefully about what you eat.
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The key is not retirement itself, in other words, but what you do in retirement. When thinking about whether to retire, Fitzpatrick emphasized, “We need to focus on more than financial health alone.”
Note carefully, therefore, that there’s nothing magical about age 62. She told me that there aren’t enough data points in the data set she and her co-researcher analyzed to detect increases in mortality that are associated with other retirement ages. But she expects that the same patterns that they discovered for retiring at 62 could apply to other ages as well.
After all, unhealthy behaviors have detrimental consequences no matter when they are incurred.
For more information, including descriptions of the Hulbert Sentiment Indices, go to The Hulbert Financial Digest or email mark@hulbertratings.com.