Paid Worker Role and Health 449retire than those who did not select into the
paid workforce. Research that compares the
effect of retirement on women and men has
revealed inconsistent findings: One study
showed women benefited more from retire-
ment than men (Mandal & Roe, 2008), one
study showed that retirement is a greater
risk for mortality for men than women
(Pizzetti & Manfredini, 2008), some studies
showed no differences (Mojon-Azzi et al.,
2007; Westerlund et al., 2009), and one study
showed women gained more weight follow-
ing retirement compared to men because
men were more active than women after re-
tirement (Forman-Hoffman et al., 2008).
What are the reasons for these contra-
dictory findings? The effects of retirement
not only depend upon whether one chooses
to retire, the income available after retire-
ment, and the centrality of paid work to one’s
sense of self, but also on the context in which
retirement occurs. Retirement is more likely
to take place in the context of other life events
for women. Women are more likely than men
to retire due to family obligations—caring for
an ill spouse, a parent, or a relative. These
life events have a stronger effect on women’s
than men’s adjustment to retirement because
the life events are more strongly linked to
caregiving responsibilities for women.TAKE HOME POINTS
■ Paid employment has a positive effect on both
women’s and men’s health.
■ The effects may be stronger among men, supporting
the differential vulnerability hypothesis, but this dif-
ference may be due to the fact that men and women
who are not in the paid labor force are not the same.
Men who are not in the paid labor force are likely to be
unemployed, whereas women who are not in the paidjobs available to younger people. This is one
reason many organizations are offering in-
centives to retire early. In 1930, 5.4% of the
population was over 65; in 2008, 12% of the
population was over 65.
If work is associated with good health,
what is the effect of retirement on health?
One determinant will be whether the per-
son chooses to retire or feels forced to retire.
People who are forced to retire and retire early
due to health reasons do not benefit from re-
tirement as much as people who choose to
retire (Brockmann, Muller, & Helmert, 2009;
van Solinge, 2007). Longitudinal studies have
linked retirement to improved mental health
in both women and men in the United States
(Mandal & Roe, 2008), in France (Westerlund
et al., 2009), and in Switzerland (Mojon-Azzi,
Sousa-Poza, & Widmer, 2007).
Who benefits the most from retire-
ment? One study showed that people with
higher incomes benefit the most from re-
tirement (Price & Balaswamy, 2009). This is
likely due to the fact that high income can be
translated into more discretionary money to
spend on leisure activities during retirement.
However, another study showed that people
benefited more from retirement when they
had low job satisfaction, low occupational
status, or worked in poor environmental
conditions (Westerlund et al., 2009). These
people would have more to gain from retire-
ment because retirement would signify the
removal of sources of stress.
Given these facts, do women and men
benefit equally from retirement? The evi-
dence here is contradictory. Retired women
show better psychological and physical
health than women who did not work out-
side the home (Silver, 2010), but a selection
effect could explain these findings. If health-
ier people select into the paid workforce,
they may still have better health when theyM12_HELG0185_04_SE_C12.indd 449 6/21/11 9:16 AM