Retire, Keep Working, or Mix It Up? 5 Questions to Help You Decide

What is your vision for the perfect post-retirement life? Languid days? A purpose-packed schedule? Or maybe a custom blend of both? Here's how to design your best after-career life.

Sharon had looked forward to her retirement for a long time. She missed her kids and grandkids who lived out of state and wanted the time to visit them more often. But about one year into her retirement, Sharon’s employer called with a surprise request: Come back to work part time.

“I jumped at the chance, but not because of financial need. I was starting to feel a bit bored. And I was craving the mental stimulation and social interaction my job used to provide me."

Sharon realized just how much she was missing work a few months earlier, while out at lunch with her former colleagues. “We had a great time laughing and catching up, and I was instantly reminded of how much I liked all the people I used to work with,” she explains.

“Everyone talked about the projects they were busy working on. At the end of lunch, they all left to go back to the office. I realized at that moment how much I wished I was going back to the office with them.”

Sharon’s experience is a reminder that retirement is not a guarantee of contentment in every case. In fact, researchers have been exploring the varied effects of retirement on both health and happiness for some time.

The findings are quite mixed. Some studies suggest that older adults who keep working enjoy better health and well-being. They may live longer, too. But other studies have found few to no health benefits from working past retirement age.

Why the mixed findings? Researchers think it might be due to variables that were not factored into much of the research. They suspect that health and well-being after retirement may be due more to each person’s unique situation with life and work.

So how can you decide whether to fully retire, keep working, or do some combination of the two? Here are 5 questions to ask yourself as you ponder the best path:

1. How do you feel about your job?
   
   If you love your work, think about what you’ll leave behind by quitting. On the other hand, if your work is stressful or tedious, and you can afford to retire, you may find that putting the job in the rearview mirror is a good choice. Ask yourself these questions:
   
   Is your job or career exciting, challenging, and fulfilling? Or is it dull, stressful, or meaningless?
   
   Do you enjoy or not enjoy the people you work with?
   
   Do you usually look forward to going to work? Or do you often wish you didn’t have to?
   
   Is your job physically demanding and hard on your body? Is it causing or worsening any injuries or pain?
   
   Does your job tire you out so much you don’t feel like doing anything else for the rest of the day?
   
   Asking yourself these questions might also help guide your decision if you’re already retired and thinking of going back to work, either full or part time, paid or voluntary.
   
   
2. Will your social circle shrink (or disappear) if you retire?
   
   Research suggests that feeling lonely and isolated, and lacking social support, can raise the risk for depression in retired adults.
   
   Think about your social circle and how it will change if you give up working. Do you have close ties with friends and family outside of work? Or is your social circle made up almost entirely of your coworkers?
   
   For most older adults, it’s somewhere in between. But this is a critical question to ask yourself before you retire. If you don’t have a spouse or close partner, and have very few friends outside of work, your job may be the sole source of social support.
   
   If so, think about taking steps now to build your social circle outside of work. Or, if you’re already retired, consider taking even a part-time job or volunteer position to rebuild your circle of friends.
   
   To browse a wealth of volunteer opportunities, Silver&Fit members can log in and visit the Volunteer section of our Social Clubs resource directory.
   
   
3. How will you keep your mind engaged once you retire?
   
   Do you have a plan in place to stay mentally engaged after you retire? Are you looking forward to spending most of your days and evenings on the couch in front of the TV? Or are you planning to take up new hobbies, volunteer, travel, work part time, or return to school?
   
   Research suggests it’s best to have some kind of plan in place to keep you thinking, learning, remembering, and problem-solving after you retire. These things are key to promoting brain health and slowing cognitive decline. So is living a life filled with meaning and purpose.
   
   If you’ve already retired and are feeling bored and at loose ends, you can change that. The choices for doing so are endless.
   
   
4. How will your fitness level change if you retire?
   
   Many older adults work in jobs where they sit all day. If you find your job leaves you with too little time and energy to work out routinely, think about that.
   
   Adults who retire and use their newly found time to get, stay, or become even more active and fit are likely to enjoy better health. On the other hand, adults who trade their career for the couch are not.
   
   Learn about 5 common barriers to getting fit and how to beat them.
   
   
5. Will you be stressed about money if you retire?
   
   Feeling stressed about money after you retire is likely not best for your health and well-being.
   
   Many older adults have not saved enough money to retire. Before you decide to quit your job, take careful stock of your 401(k) or other retirement income and your total social security income. Will it last? Factor in your health care costs and all your other costs, too.
   
   You may want to meet with a financial planner to crunch the numbers before you decide when to retire. Or look for an online retirement calculator.
   
   Figure out if working part time after you retire would ease your financial stress. Or, if you dislike your current full-time job, think about whether a second career could be more enjoyable. You never know. You may find one of these options not only eases money worries, but fulfills you in other ways, as well.

Keep in mind that retirement is not an either/or proposition

The decision to keep working or retire is not black and white. And that’s a good thing. With a bit of planning and enough savings you can tailor the retirement life you want.

You could take a part-time job or start your own business. You might turn a long-standing hobby into an unexpected source of income or an opportunity to give back to your community.

Or you might think about starting a second career after retirement. Maybe you’ll find an opportunity to work in a field you’ve always been interested in. You might want to resume your education, too. There’s never a wrong time to learn new things!

And, like Sharon, you might even find that the best path for you is one that gives you some time for a little of everything you love.

“I have the best of both worlds,” she says. “I love being back at my job part-time, working on my travel blog, and doing a bit of freelance writing, too. But I still have the time to travel, to volunteer with the Humane Society, and to spend time with family.

“Working part time has allowed me to enjoy the camaraderie and mental stimulation of working on projects and goals with my colleagues. I think I would feel a real void without that in my life.”

As you contemplate your path ahead, stay open to all the possibilities. Know that it’s a fluid decision and can be evaluated and re-evaluated before, during, and after you retire.

Not a Silver&Fit® member? Learn more about everything the program has to offer, including more helpful health living tips like this, here on our website.

This information is not intended to take the place of professional care or advice.

Sharon is an employee of American Specialty Health; she is not a member of the Silver&Fit Program. Images used for this article do not depict Sharon or any members of the Silver&Fit Program.

References

Carr, D. C., Willis, R., Kail, B. L., Carstensen, L. L. (2020, April 2). Alternative retirement paths and cognitive performance: Exploring the role of preretirement job complexity. The Gerontologist, 60(3), 460-471. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnz079

Den Bogaard, L. V., & Henkens, K. (2018, October 1). When is quitting an escape? How different job demands affect physical and mental health outcomes of retirement. European Journal of Public Health, (5), 815-819. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cky040

Harvard Health Publishing. (2018, June 1). Working later in life can pay off more than just income. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/working-later-in-life-can-pay-off-in-more-than-just-income

K. C., P., Virtanen, M., Pentti, J., Kivimaki, M., Vahtera, J., Stenholm, S. (2020, December 10). Does working beyond the statutory retirement age have an impact on health and functional capacity? The Finnish Retirement and Aging Cohort Study. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, doi: 10.1136/oemed-2020-106964

Meng, A., Anderson Nexo, M., Borg, V. (2017, July 21). The impact of retirement on age-related cognitive decline. BioMed Central Geriatrics,17(1), 160. doi: 10.1186/s12877-017-0556-7 National Institute on Aging. (2007, March). Growing older in America: The health and retirement study.
https://www.nia.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2017-06/health_and_retirement_study_0.pdf

Velez-Coto, M., Andel, R., Perez-Garcia, M., Caracuel, A. (2021, March). Complexity of work with people: Associations with cognitive functioning and change after retirement. Psychology and Aging, 36(2), 143-157. doi: 10.1037/pag0000584

This article was written by Gail Olson, edited by Candace Hodges, and clinically reviewed by Elizabeth Thompson, MPH, RDN.