For some, retirement evokes thoughts of slowing down, relaxing, and enjoying more of what life has to offer. For others, ending a regular work schedule can create stress and uncertainties about being able to pay necessary bills and maintain adequate medical care.
A new study by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health examines how retirement affects mental health and related inpatient mental health care among female workers in China, leveraging China's unique retirement age policy and nationally representative inpatient medical claims data.
The study analyzed hospital records right before and after these retirement-age cutoffs. For blue-collar workers, rates of hospital admissions for mental illnesses, including anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders, increased following retirement at age 50. However, there was no similar rise among white-collar females retiring five years later.
"The reasons blue-collar women experience worse mental health after retiring are still unclear," said Xi Chen, associate professor of public health at the Yale School of Public Health and a senior author on the study."But it could be that job loss itself and lower incomes may hit these manual laborers harder psychologically and financially than their white-collar counterparts. Blue-collar workers also tend to have fewer resources to adapt to major life changes.
With the world's largest and fastest-growing aging population, China faces ballooning economic pressures within its pension and health care systems, said Ruochen Sun, MPH '20 , co-lead author of the study. The research focused on the health consequences of early retirement. Because the statutory retirement age for male workers in China is 60, male workers were not included in the study.
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