← What's That Rash?
What's That Rash?
Is retirement bad for you?
00:22:28
Last year Norman made the shocking statement that people shouldn’t retire because it’ll be bad for their brains. After an influx of requests, we’ve looked at the evidence not only when it comes to brain health, but heart health, metabolic health and mental wellbeing. Norman and Tegan unpack the complex story of what happens to your brain and body when you retire – depending on the job you had. References: How Retirement Was Invented: The earliest schemes for financial support in old age were pegged to life expectancy Towards higher retirement incomes for Australians: a history of the Australian retirement income system since Federation Impact of retirement transition on health, well-being and health behaviours: critical insights from an overview of reviews Effect of retirement on cognitive function: the Whitehall II cohort study Retirement or no Retirement? The Decision’s Effects on Cognitive Functioning, Well-Being, and Quality of Life Risk of Cognitive Declines With Retire...
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- [00:01]
A
New year, same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus fries and a medium soft drink for just $8 for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.
- [00:14]
B
And for delivery, ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. Main engine starts. I remember the day so clearly. One left off Roger Roll. Obviously a major mal.
- [00:33]
A
I ran outside as fast as I could and looked up in the sky.
- [00:37]
B
Couldn't believe it. It exploded. I'm science reporter Fiona pepper. And I'm Dr. Karl. We're going to tell you the story of Challenger Challenger Legacy Search for Science Friction wherever you get your podcasts or on the ABC Listen app. So, Norman, I want to ask you a question that people love to ask me.
- [00:57]
A
So you're shifting onto me? Okay, fine.
- [00:59]
B
Well, people like to ask me when Norman Swan is going to retire.
- [01:02]
A
You're kidding. Do.
- [01:04]
B
Like, multiple times.
- [01:05]
A
You're getting fed up with me already.
- [01:06]
B
They look at me with a beady eye and they're like, when do you think Norman will ever retire? And I say something very diplomatic about how young you are and how you probably never will.
- [01:14]
A
Oh, thank you.
- [01:15]
B
Your check's in the mail, but go on.
- [01:19]
A
Never. Never. Well, I think at some point the ABC will wave goodbye to me rather than me waving goodbye to the abc.
- [01:27]
B
Are you the guy who's like, at a party and everyone wants to go to bed and you're still there? Like, do people have to ask you to leave other situations as well?
- [01:34]
A
Usually hang out till near the end? Yeah. Not necessarily falling asleep.
- [01:38]
B
Yeah, cool. All the good stuff happens after midnight. Well, talking about retirement and when the right time to retire, if at all, is today's topic on. What's that Rash.
- [01:47]
A
That's the podcast where we answer the health questions that just everybody's asking.
- [01:54]
B
Everybody truly is asking about this this week, Norman, but not for from a hive mind situation, but because a few weeks ago you just made some, like, offhanded comment about the fact that no one should ever retire ever. And people listening were like, wait, what? So we had questions from Tammy, Ashley, Ros, Christian, Richard, and Tony, all basically being like, wait. More information is required, please.
- [02:19]
A
Tammy says all these WTF responses.
- [02:24]
B
Tammy says, you can't just drop a line like that and leave us hanging. Why have you crushed the dream of retirement? You definitely see some people thrive in retirement, some regret it, and some, sadly, don't get the choice to enjoy it at all, which is fair. And Ashley is also saying, yes, please. My father retired a few years ago because he was leaving a toxic work environment. And he now spends most of his time planning overseas holidays, which he's well and truly earned. But Ashley says, I feel there are better ways to keep his mind and body active so that he can stay as young for as long as possible. So, yeah, lots of queries around. People feel feeling like they're healthier and happier because they've retired, which is at odds with what you were implying. Tony says, I want to know if I'm on the right track. I formally retired 20 years ago, but I have a love of dogs and 11 years ago my wife suggested I do something useful. So Tony has become a dog groomer, specifically of Bernie's Mountain Dogs. Those are really big, you know, they're really big dogs, Norman. They're like 50 kilos.
- [03:23]
A
Tony's going to be in high demand after this podcast.
- [03:26]
B
Tony says rather than fritter away the days I have a client diagnosis to adhere to, the only reason to retire altogether will be when his body can't deal with 50 kilo dogs. So I feel like perhaps a very slight recap of what you were gesturing at when you said it's healthier not to retire.
- [03:44]
A
Well, it's the, it's the evidence, really. Sadly, it wasn't a throwaway remark. I mean, there are huge caveats here which we'll get to in this podcast, which is what I didn't get to in my throwaway remarks. But by and large, retirement is often associated with more rapid cognitive decline. So your memory, your thinking, processing speed, verbal memory, all the various versions of brain activity that go together that we call cognitive function decline as we get older. But that decline speeds up after retirement in general, on average. And we can go into the details on that and if you realize that and the influences on that, then you can do something about it, which might be. Well, we'll come to that later on in the show.
- [04:33]
B
Yes, exactly, we will. We will come to it because there's the cognitive stuff, like you said. We'll talk about physical health as well and just how non uniform, how heterogeneous it is when people have very different careers and they're leaving different kinds of workplaces. But it really got me thinking about retirement as a concept because I think I'd thought about the fact that we have retirement these days. It feels like something that you're just entitled to. And I think I thought about this.
- [04:59]
A
Well, you are entitled to it.
- [05:00]
B
Yes, exactly. But. And I'd also thought about the fact that in the olden days in capital letters as a catch all term for anything more than about 100 years ago, you didn't, you just kind of worked and then you died. Or you hopefully had someone take care of you, like the younger generation or something. And I hadn't really.
- [05:18]
A
Well, just before you go on, I mean the idea was, I mean when I was a kid, the common thing that was said about retirement was oh, he worked like a dog until he was 65 or whenever the retirement age was. And then he died a year later.
- [05:32]
B
Yes, exactly, exactly.
- [05:34]
A
And it was also said, you know, for every year earlier you retire, you get two years at the other end. And that was a statement that really didn't have very much proof attached to it.
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B
I've never heard that before.
- [05:45]
A
It was common in Britain because it was probably so miserable he went off to France.
- [05:50]
B
Stop working. You look up and look around, you go, oh my gosh, where am I? I should migrate to Australia. Anyway, I hadn't ever really thought much about this transition period between when it wasn't a given that people would have some sort of lovely end to their life, retirement and when we did. So would you like me to kind of explain to you a little bit of how we got here?
- [06:08]
A
Let me sit back and listen to.
- [06:09]
B
You just retire from broadcasting just for a minute or two while I run you through this. So you've heard of Otto von Bismarck before?
- [06:17]
A
I have. He brought Germany together in the late 19th century.
- [06:20]
B
Right. So one of the other things that he is known for is basically invent the idea of retirement. So 1881, he was then the president of Prussia and he liked this idea of government run financial support for older members of society. And so he sort of said, okay, if you're disabled from work by age, you should have a claim to care from the state. And then they eventually brought in a retirement system which provided for citizens who were over the age of 70.
- [06:51]
A
So that was pretty low financial risk for the government.
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B
Exactly. Cause at that time it was pretty much life expectancy. So even though there had been life.
- [06:59]
A
Expectancy would be in what, late 19th century, probably 49 or something like that, you reckon? Yep, absolutely.
- [07:05]
B
Well, fact check what it was German Life expectancy, 1890, let's say. Oh yikes. Life expectancy at birth was around 40 to 41 years. If you survived adulthood, you could expect to live into your 50s or 60s. Anyway, like you say, it was a pretty safe financial bet. Most people didn't live that long. But this idea is that yeah, if you ended up living that long, then you could have the chance to sort of chill a little bit. And so this started in Prussia, obviously, but it very quickly kind of became the done thing in all sorts of different countries, including in the US. And so in the US, when the Social Security act was passed in the 1930s, the official retirement age was 65. At that time, life expectancy was around 58. But the thing that happened at around the same time as retirement came in was that life expectancy suddenly became much longer. And so within a couple of decades, by 1960, life expectancy in America was almost 70. And so all of a sudden you've got all these people living past the age of retirement. They've got permission to stop working, they've got the money to do it. So you end up with this cultural thing which we have now, which is that you're sort of entitled to a few decades of basically kicking back and doing whatever you want.
- [08:23]
A
Which implies a generosity of the pension system, which actually has never existed unless you have a private pension.
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B
Exactly. It wasn't the original promise of the system. It's sort of what's come out of it since then.
- [08:34]
A
So what was the original one in New South Wales? 26 quid a year for a single person.
- [08:38]
B
I mean, that was probably the equivalent of a gazillion gazillion dollars these days. I don't know. You remember, Norman, what did it feel like in 1909?
- [08:45]
A
That's when you could go around the world for thruppens and still have change.
- [08:49]
B
But I guess what I don't think I'd really thought about in a lot of detail is that there could be a harm.
- [08:53]
A
So it's complicated. So there's a thing called cognitive reserve, which is a real phenomenon. So the more education you had earlier in life, the more brain scaffolding that you've got, for example, as you go on in life. So the function of our brains does decline as we get older, but the more reserve you've got, you notice that happening later in life. And also that cognitive reserve, that building of the brain is then enhanced by the complexity of the job that you do. Part of the story here with retirement and what's happened to you after retirement is about what was the job that you did. So, for example, if you've had a hard physical job, laying bricks, it's really hard to continue doing that job beyond a certain age. I won't define what the age is, but you'll get to a point much sooner than somebody who's got an office based job that you just can't physically lift the brakes anymore. It's just getting harder. You've had injuries and you're tired. And. And the paradox slightly is that the decline of a job that might be physical is probably a little bit less paradoxically than the decline of a job with high complexity. So it turns out that the sort of job you've got makes a difference to the decline you experience after retirement. A lot of this work has been done by economists rather than gerontologists because they're looking at the impact of retirement. And of course, there's a huge fiscal responsibility on the part of governments and fiscal, you could call it a burden attached to retirement. And therefore you want an efficient retirement system. So it turns out that if you've had a highly complex job, but the job is more about data managing data sitting there, you might be working in a team, but you're not managing the team versus, say, a highly complex job where you're managing people, you're having to mentor others, you're having to solve problems, you're having to solve arguments in the workplace, and so on. Both those jobs, if you keep on working, your cognitive decline is delayed. But if you stop work from a data kind of job, your decline is at a shallower decline than the decline of a job where you'd be managing people. And there's been a lot of stress involved. And that's a whole other story, which you might get to in another podcast. And so your decline is actually faster. So job complexity counts. So the good thing is high job complexity, higher cognitive reserve, you come up a higher level. Therefore you'll notice the decline later. If you measure it, you'll notice it a bit later than somebody else who might not have had that job complexity.
- [11:29]
B
So that really is less about retirement and more what you do for your entire working life.
- [11:33]
A
Well, it is about retirement because the longer you go in that job complexity, the later that cognitive decline. So that is about that. But there's also a healthy effect here, is that healthier people tend to work longer in life than people who are not. There's also some economists talk about retirement in place where some people have checked out of their job before they retire. And it may be, we've talked about this on the health report in the past, which is dementia, particularly Alzheimer's, may have a long run in, that might be 20 years long. And you may actually have some of the effects of early dementia that's not noticeable to anybody, including yourself, but that's starting to check you out of your job. So there might be A bias in people who retire. So I'm arguing against myself here, by the way. Bias in people who retire who might actually have cognitive problems starting that they and their families don't notice.
- [12:32]
B
So to recap, the effect of retirement on your brain health in particular, in general, staying in work is better for your brain in general. Having a data based job is going to be more protective longer term. And in, in general, when you leave, you are going to experience some sort of dip in your cognitive look, some.
- [12:49]
A
Of this economic research suggests that it washes out after two or three years. So that after two or three years you tend to end up in the same sort of position, regardless of whether it was data versus managing people type situation.
- [13:03]
B
But you are losing something.
- [13:04]
A
You are losing something. And the fascinating thing here is there are very large surveys of cognitive function in different countries. And here's the thing that the French are going to hate to hear, that Americans are cleverer than French.
- [13:21]
B
They're just rage betting now because the.
- [13:22]
A
French retire early and you can when you do these huge surveys of cognitive function in populations. The countries that retire early have lost more cognitive function than the countries that retire late.
- [13:37]
B
Okay, but like, are they happier?
- [13:39]
A
Well, the French think they're, you know.
- [13:41]
B
They'Re having a ball, you know, okay, all right. America's already on the brink of too many different conflicts. Let's not introduce another one here. So that's quite comprehensive. Talking about cognitive reserve, cognitive decline after retirement. I wonder if maybe our question askers are feeling a little more illuminated there. What about the rest of our health? I'm thinking about if you've had a very office based job, maybe in retirement, especially in early retirement, you're more likely to be going for walks in the morning or going to your yoga class. All the stuff that you didn't get to do when you were office bound. What do we know about different facets of physical health and the effect that retirement has there?
- [14:17]
A
Well, I don't think you can separate physical health from mental health totally.
- [14:20]
B
But like we have spoken a lot about.
- [14:22]
A
Well, I'm not talking cognitive decline here. I'm talking about depression and mood. Okay, so some people's mood goes up after retirement, some people's mood goes down, some people's mood is unchanged. Abrupt retirement, where you have got no choice in the matter, is associated with a decline in mood. Where you're in control of a retirement transition, your mood is much better as time. If your mood is better, you're much more likely to engage in physical activity and engage in other things. But if your mood is down, it's hard to motivate yourself. So it's a mixed picture. And people's weight tends to go up, which counters the notion of physical activity. If you got public transport to work, if you don't notice it when you retire, you might be getting less physical activity. Even though you're going out for walks than you got when you were at work. You don't realize how much you were climbing stairs, how much you were walking to and from the tram or the bus. So it's a complicated story. And of course you've got to factor in that as you get older, you're more at risk of coronary heart disease and cancer and other diseases than you were younger.
- [15:23]
B
Kind of just anyway.
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A
Yeah. And so there's not a lot of evidence that retirement strongly affects your physical health, particularly if you pay attention to it.
- [15:31]
B
So I guess the question I would like to then explore a bit is what do you mean by retiring? Because I could imagine someone's definition of retirement might be I worked in full time paid employment and now I don't. Or it might be that I'm not going to retire because I consider the volunteering work I do as work or the caregiving work that I do as work. And so you might have retired and to be able to access the pension or your superannuation, but you could still be living a very active, mentally and physically active life.
- [16:02]
A
So here's the concept that counts and it's cognitive demand you want throughout life, the demand on you cognitively. And by cognitively I mean that sort of comprehensive idea of brain function. It's like exercising, it's like always pushing yourself to do, add on more weights, add on more reps, add on a bit of speed to your walking and so on. Progression is that your cognitive demand is high and you are having to work to meet that cognitive demand. So what is it about work? Work is about being social. It's about meeting other people who are not your family. Usually it's about having to learn new skills, it's about hopefully having high cognitive demand. So your brain is constantly working to expand the scaffolding that I spoke about. And therefore, if you are in an environment where your cognitive demand is high, you're always having to learn new stuff and deal with people that you're not necessarily close to but feel connected with, then that replaces your paid work. And so the recipe for post paid work I think is the best way to describe it is as many activities as you can possibly do that have a variety to them, family, friends, outside people that you don't know, outside activities, having to learn new things all the time. That's the secret. And much better than buying, you know, some cognitive training program and hoping it's going to work.
- [17:35]
B
I feel like Tony is on the right track with the Bernie's Mountain Dog Grooming business. It's like, it's physical. You're probably meeting people, you're wrangling different things. I'm sure that working with animals is sure to be throwing you curveballs every single day. We should all be more like Tony.
- [17:49]
A
Yeah. I mean, working with animals is like being a dentist, you know.
- [17:55]
B
Very unappealing.
- [17:56]
A
I should say it's more like being a pediatrician where you can't, you can talk a little bit to the young baby, but you're really communicating with people.
- [18:02]
B
Oh, I see what you're saying.
- [18:03]
A
For a vet, yes, absolutely.
- [18:06]
B
So bottom line here is Dr. Norman Swans going to be on your radio.
- [18:10]
A
For decades to come Until I'm exited by the system.
- [18:15]
B
In which case you're going to take up Bernie's Mountain dog Grooming, I assume.
- [18:18]
A
Well, I hope there's a place for it. Yes, I'm looking forward to it.
- [18:22]
B
Well, thank you so much for calling Norman out on this throwaway comment. Tammy, Ashley, Rosie, Christine, Richard and Tony. It's been a really fun little deep dive and of course, if you have a question, you can always email us. Our email address is thatrashbc.net au so.
- [18:37]
A
What'S in the mailbag?
- [18:38]
B
A couple of things. One fun and one people calling us out. So let's get the.
- [18:43]
A
You're being nasty to us.
- [18:45]
B
No, not nasty. They are holding us to the data, which is what we want them to do. So basically, when we're talking about exercise versus diet, we very briefly mentioned the Seven Countries study. When we're talking about the history of diet research. This is sort of like the proto Mediterranean entire study, the one that kind of put that on the map. Anyway, people pointed out the fact that there has been a lot more nuance put around that study since it was first published. It's true, they have, but we, yeah, we didn't sort of put that couching in when we spoke about it last week.
- [19:13]
A
But seriously, we now have a lot of evidence about the style of diet that we call on. What's that rash? The Mediterranean diet.
- [19:22]
B
Bing. Bing. Yeah, we actually did a whole episode about it. So there is a bit more nuance in that episode. If you want to go and listen to our diet, if you want to Go and listen to our episode on the Mediterranean diet. Hopefully that helps. Just put a bit of more nuance around that as well. The other point of business that I have from last week, Norman, is that I threw out a thought bubble in which we mentioned Casimir Funk, who is the researcher who coined the term vitamins. And I said, is there a cooler name in science than Casimir Funk?
- [19:49]
A
Turns out there is, and it's Bombastus von Hohenheim.
- [19:54]
B
It is Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. He was otherwise known by. He had like a. His stage name. His stage name was Paracelsus.
- [20:04]
A
Yeah, so he was an alchemist, but, you know, with a bit of science there as well. Very famous in his day.
- [20:08]
B
He's the dose maketh the poison guy. If, you know, he had a stage name and he had a catchphrase. He really was a very 21st century famous guy. Energy.
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A
He was.
- [20:19]
B
So, Veronica, thank you for calling me.
- [20:21]
A
Maybe we could invent a new therapy. Paracelsus Therapy.
- [20:23]
B
Paracelsus Therapy. Do you have a favorite ancient doctor?
- [20:27]
A
You know, that's a very good question. I dislike the way medical history has actually happened over centuries. It tends to be a history of medical men, as if they've made some amazing difference along the way. And, you know, there have been some people who developed open heart surgery. I made a science show on that a few years ago. But medical history is really a social history, and therefore people like Paracelsus and others are part of that social history. We cannot just like you can't separate diet from exercise. You can't separate health and medicine from society and history.
- [21:04]
B
You're gonna give me one name. You're not gonna be like, oh, Galen, oh, Pliny the Elder, like you're not even gonna pick one guy.
- [21:10]
A
I am not. I steadfast in my refusal to give yet another medical man some greater emphasis.
- [21:18]
B
All right, then.
- [21:18]
A
All the women who pass by.
- [21:20]
B
All right, then. Dr. Norman Swan. No worries at all. Well, thank you for your questions and your feedback. We love it all. Thatrashbc.net au and we'll see you next week. See you then.