title: A retrospective cohort study on retirement and mortality for male employees of a local government of Japan.
abstract: This retrospective cohort study describes the mortality pattern after retirement and examines associations of the last job position and work status immediately after retirement with the mortality for male employees who retired from Kochi prefectural government. The subjects include 514 retirees over the 1977-1981 period, who were followed for 9.8 years after retirement, and 721 retirees over the 1982-1986 period, who were followed for 5.8-9.8 years. All subjects were hypothesized to have retired at a normal retirement age. Mortality risk was stable through the follow-up period subdivided into two-year intervals in both cohorts of retirees. In both cohorts, men who did not work immediately after retirement had increased mortality within the first two years of retirement compared with those who worked immediately after retirement. This finding is consistent with the mortality pattern explained by health related selection into working after retirement. The present study does not show a meaningful mortality fluctuation over the post-retirement period among male employees of the local government. Lack of information on ages and health status at retirement of individual subjects hampers discussion about causality of observed associations between two study variables concerning pre- and post-retirement characteristics and post-retirement mortality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Kochi Medical School, Japan.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yasuda
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Toyota
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koda
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ohara
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujimura
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D015993:Life Tables; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012179:Retirement / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012189:Retrospective Studies