Baxter, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-6034-5495, Blank, L. orcid.org/0000-0002-8765-3076, Cantrell, A. orcid.org/0000-0003-0040-9853 et al. (1 more author) (2021) Is working in later life good for your health? A systematic review of health outcomes resulting from extended working lives. BMC Public Health, 21. 1356. ISSN 1471-2458
Abstract
Background
Work, rather than unemployment, is recognised as being good for health, but there may be an age when the benefits are outweighed by adverse impacts. As countries around the world increase their typical retirement age, the potential effect on population health and health inequalities requires scrutiny.
Methods
We carried out a systematic review of literature published since 2011 from developed countries on the health effects of employment in those over 64 years of age. We completed a narrative synthesis and used harvest plots to map the direction and volume of evidence for the outcomes reported. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) checklist in our methods and reporting.
Results
We identified seventeen relevant studies, which were of cohort or cross-sectional design. The results indicate evidence of beneficial or neutral effects from extended working on overall health status and physical health for many employees, and mixed effects on mental health. The benefits reported however, are most likely to be for males, those working part-time or reducing to part-time, and employees in jobs which are not low quality or low reward.
Conclusions
Extending working life (particularly part time) may have benefits or a neutral effect for some, but adverse effects for others in high demand or low reward jobs. There is the potential for widening health inequalities between those who can choose to reduce their working hours, and those who need to continue working full time for financial reasons. There is a lack of evidence for effects on quality of life, and a dearth of interventions enabling older workers to extend their healthy working life.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s). 2021. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
Keywords: | Extending working; Retirement; Health; Systematic review; Employment; Older workers |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NIHR Evaluation Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre NIHRDH-NIHR127659 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jul 2021 15:01 |
Last Modified: | 19 Jul 2021 15:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/s12889-021-11423-2 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:176296 |
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