ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2020
Mental Health Before and After Retirement-Assessing the Relevance of Psychosocial Working Conditions: The Whitehall II Prospective Study of British Civil Servants.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Does retirement trigger depressive symptoms? A systematic review and meta-analysis.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2021Pooled it
- Psychosocial stress from pre- to post-pandemic times: latent class mixed model analysis using data from a German cohort.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards mental health amongst adults in Jigawa State, northwest Nigeria.Discover mental health · 2026Article
- Emotional Well-Being Trajectories Before and After Statutory Retirement-Contributions of Social and Health-Related Factors.Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2026Article
- "Retirement Is One Hell of a Change": Autistic People's Experiences of Retiring.Autism in adulthood · 2026Article
- COVID-19, economic downturn, and long-term trajectories of population mental health: Evidence from two nationally representative British birth cohorts at the intersection of gender and socioeconomic position.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2026Article
- Working hours and depression in the HEAF cohort.Occupational medicine (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Retirement and grandchild care in China: mental health consequences and policy implications.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Fading authority, rising depression: occupational identity and mental health among China's retired danwei leaders.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Golden years happiness: analyzing the nostalgic aspect of leisure.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Financial Self-Efficacy, Retirement Goal Clarity, and Preretirement Anxiety Among Nurses in Southeast Nigeria: The Mediating Role of Job Embeddedness.Innovation in aging · 2024Article
- Mental health around retirement: evidence of Ashenfelter's dip.Global health research and policy · 2023Article
- Retirement age and disability status as pathways to later-life cognitive impairment: Evidence from the Norwegian HUNT Study linked with Norwegian population registers.International journal of geriatric psychiatry · 2023Article
- Association of depressive symptoms with retirement in Chinese employees: evidence from national longitudinal surveys from 2011 to 2018.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Retirement Planning and Financial Anxiety among Nigerian Civil Servants: Insights from Social Comparison Theory.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Transition to retirement impact on risk of depression and suicidality: results from a longitudinal analysis of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2023Article
- Factors that influence health literacy in patients with coronary artery disease.Revista latino-americana de enfermagem · 2023Article
- Air pollution associated with hospital visits for mental and behavioral disorders in Northeast China.Frontiers in epidemiology · 2023Article
- Work Expectations, Depressive Symptoms, and Passive Suicidal Ideation Among Older Adults: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study.The Gerontologist · 2022Article
- Changes in healthy and unhealthy working life expectancies among older working-age people in Finland, 2000-2017.European journal of public health · 2022Article
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Abstract
objectivesRetirement could be a stressor or a relief. We stratify according to previous psychosocial working conditions to identify short-term and long-term changes in mental health.
methodUsing data from the Whitehall II study on British civil servants who retired during follow-up (n = 4,751), we observe mental health (General Health Questionnaire [GHQ] score) on average 8.2 times per participant, spanning up 37 years. We differentiate short-term (0-3 years) and long-term (4+ years) changes in mental health according to retirement and investigate whether trajectories differ by psychosocial job demands, work social support, decision authority, and skill discretion.
resultsEach year, mental health slightly improved before retirement (-0.070; 95% CI [-0.080, -0.059]; higher values on the GHQ score are indicative of worse mental health), and retirees experienced a steep short-term improvement in mental health after retirement (-0.253; 95% CI [-0.302, -0.205]), but no further significant long-term changes (0.017; 95% CI [-0.001, 0.035]). Changes in mental health were more explicit when retiring from poorer working conditions; this is higher psychosocial job demands, lower decision authority, or lower work social support. DISCUSSION: Retirement was generally beneficial for health. The association between retirement and mental health was dependent on the context individuals retire from.
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