Long-term health impacts of forced early retirement among steelworkers

Journal of Family Practice, April, 1991 by William R. Gillanders, Terry F. Buss, Evelynn Wingard, David Gemmel

After the effects of the demographic covariates were removed, retirement status again failed to produce a statistically significant effect on any health status measure.

Demographic covariates were consistently better health status predictors than was retirement status. As expected, retirees who were disabled were in poorer health on all three measures in all groups. Disabled retirees were more likely to be dysfunctional and symptomatic and to perceive themselves to be in poorer health. Length of time out of the work force was the next most important predictor of poor health: the longer a retiree was out of the work force, the worse his health status--holding age constant. Age was significant only in predicting greater symptoms of ill health. Finally, race was also statistically significant: blacks perceived themselves to be in poorer health on all three health status measures.

Discussion

Over the long term, the health of forced retirees may not be adversely affected by sudden job loss and unexpected retirement. In explaining the findings, two theories of retirement were considered. The crisis theory postulates that "retirement implies failure to perform, which reduces self-respect and status, which leads to further withdrawal from social participation, which leads to isolation, illness, and decline in happiness and life satisfaction." [2] The continuity theory postulates that retirement has become a legitimate and desirable role with opportunities for the continuation of other roles and development of new leisure roles, which provides a continuation of self-esteem and status." [2] The continuity theory seems to best explain steelworker behavior. The health of forced early retirees, like that of the population generally, is affected by race, age, and disability, not by retirement status.

Other factors should also be considered. First, some forced early retirees may have suffered ill health shortly after retirement, but subsequently recovered. If they had, the effects were either mild or short-lived. Other studies conducted on retired steelworkers 1, 2, and 8 years following the closing of Youngstown Sheet and Tube suggested that the effects were mild. [5] Second, even if minorities, older workers, and the disabled population were not forced to retire, they likely would have suffered poorer health. These groups are usually more at risk than others. [13]

Third, the following criticism could be made: early retirees in poor health may have died or been institutionalized; therefore, the health effects of the closing are masked because only health people remain. Lacking this information is a potential disadvantage of cross-sectional research, which does not track people over time. Early retirees are not atypical when compared with other retirees. In a separate longitudinal study of laid-off steelworkers from Youngstonw Sheet and Tube, conducted from 1977 to 1985, retired steelworkers were not found to have fared worse than others. In fact, on a variety of sociopsychological measures, they actually were comparable to the reemployed. Even assuming that those forced early retirees in ill health did drop out of the community setting, they must have done so at the same rate as the regular and other retirees; their health status was identical. To argue otherwise would be to suggest that the forced early retirees were in better health than others as they retired, an unlikely proposition. Only a longitudinal study designated to measure health status before and then after a plant closing can ultimately resolve the issue.