The impact of early retirement on the mental health of blue-collar women in China

Retirement is a big change that has a big impact on a person’s life.

For some people, retirement evokes thoughts of slowing down, relaxing, and enjoying more of what life has to offer. For others, the end of their normal work schedule can cause stress and anxiety about whether they will be able to pay necessary expenses and maintain adequate medical care.

New research published in economics and human biology Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health leverage China’s unique retirement age policy and nationally representative inpatient medical claims data to find that retirement affects the mental health of Chinese female workers and associated inpatient mental health. We investigated how it would affect health care.

The study focused specifically on the differences between women working in blue-collar jobs, such as factory work or trade work, and women working in white-collar roles, such as office management.

Under China’s retirement system, the age at which women must retire varies by occupation. The retirement age for women in blue-collar jobs is 50, while women in white-collar jobs typically work until age 55.

The study analyzed hospital records immediately before and after the retirement age cut. For blue-collar workers, hospitalization rates for mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders increased after they retired at age 50. However, a similar increase was not seen among white-collar women who retired after five years.

The study found that blue-collar female retirees began using emergency rooms (ERs) more frequently for mental health crises after age 50. The study found that after female blue-collar workers retired, the number of emergency department visits for urgent mental health conditions increased by 16.6%. But again, we did not see similar growth in emergency medicine among retired white-collar employees.

“We still don’t know why blue-collar women have worse mental health after retirement,” said Shi Chen, associate professor of public health (health policy) at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) and senior author of the study. speaks.

“However, unemployment itself and reduced income can hit manual workers harder psychologically and economically than white-collar workers. They tend to have fewer resources to adapt.”

The findings show that the impact of China’s retirement policy on female workers varies significantly depending on the nature of the work. Researchers said more research is needed to identify optimal retirement ages and more flexible retirement plans as the population ages rapidly.

“Early support targeted at at-risk blue-collar women can help make their transition out of the workforce smoother, including by improving their psychological preparedness.” said Tianyu Wang, one of the study’s lead authors and a former graduate researcher at YSPH.

China, with the world’s largest and fastest growing aging population, faces increasing economic pressures within its pension and health care systems, said the study’s co-lead author, MPH ’20 (Health Policy). Ruochen Sun said.

China’s existing occupation-based retirement age policy was established in the 1950s, when the country’s average life expectancy was approximately 43 years. Currently, about 20 million new retirees enter Chinese society every year, Sun said.

The study’s co-senior author, Professor Jody L. Sindelar of YSPH, said the findings should encourage Chinese policymakers to consider employees’ mental health in retirement planning in addition to financial considerations. He said he could let them know. Sindelar said raising wages and benefits for low-income, blue-collar female workers and helping them better prepare for retirement at age 50 could help ease some of the strain on China’s elderly care capacity. He said it could help alleviate the problem.

The study focused on the health effects of early retirement. Male workers were not included in the study because the legal retirement age for male workers in China is 60 years.

Although the study was limited to female workers in China, the researchers say their findings are relevant to workers experiencing longer life expectancies, an aging population, and concerns about the financial solvency of retirees. He said this could provide information to policy makers in other developing and developed countries who are currently developing countries.