When President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he was ending his reelection campaign, he emphasized that his choice was in the interest of society as a whole. “I believe this is in the best interest of our party and our country,” he said in a statement. Biden’s decision appears to have been a calculated one that put the health of the nation above his own interests, perhaps even above his own physical and mental health.
When people choose to retire, it’s generally a positive experience that doesn’t have a major impact on their mental health. But leaving a high-paying job, whether to retire completely or cut back significantly, is hard for many Americans. And it’s especially hard for Biden’s base: highly educated men who continue to work well past age 65. Average retirement age for men“There’s an expectation, especially for college-educated men in professional roles, that work is part of their identity,” Sarah Damascene, who studies gender and labor at Pennsylvania State University, told me. Losing that could have serious consequences. Biden’s health was affectedThe president has shown signs of significant cognitive and physical decline while in office, but when he leaves office in January he will face new cognitive challenges.
“When you’re at the center of your world through your work, you don’t have a compelling story or a place in society where you can say, ‘Maybe I’ve had enough,'” says Joseph Coughlin, founder and director of the MIT AgeLab. “You’re opening the door to people without giving them any direction.” This has implications for cognitive and emotional health. When people try to identify themselves in the past tense — say they were a doctor, a teacher, a president — they shift their focus from the present and future to the past. Research shows that ruminating on the past can… There is a correlation It is accompanied by negative mental health impacts, including depression and a sense that one’s perspective and experiences no longer matter.
Many Americans who remain in high-ranking positions into their 70s, 80s and beyond do so out of understandable anxiety about what will happen to them if they lose their jobs. SK Park, 88, a former psychiatrist and professor at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, never wanted to retire. But at age 80, he told me, “I decided to retire when my cognitive abilities were still at their peak. I was very conscious of not becoming a stubborn, opinionated old man.” At age 84, 53 years after starting his career, Park thought he would quit work and turn to other interests: his children and grandchildren, calligraphy, hiking, traveling. But instead, “it just seemed like my life had suddenly stopped,” he says. Suddenly, he had no idea what to do with his time or how to provide value to his community.
Being away from the work that gives you identity, routine, social networks and purpose has several negative health effects, especially for older adults. Linguistic memorySkill in recalling oral and written information essential for tasks such as presentations and customer communications. 2020 Meta-Analysis It was found that 28% of retirees suffer from depression. Estimated for 2019 According to a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, worldwide Only 13.8 percent 10% of adults over 60 experience some kind of mental disorder.
Some doctors Occupations biased towards older people— It’s precisely because he’s familiar with the medical literature that he hesitates to retire. “I know, at least intellectually, that in old age you can slip into despair,” Park says. “I’m trying really hard not to fall into that hole.” Stephen Derbez, 83, a rheumatologist at Louisiana State University School of Medicine who still sees patients in the hospital, has no plans to retire. “I just worry that if I quit, I’d be at a really high risk for depression,” Derbez told me. “I’d lose my sense of self-worth, or at least diminish it, because I’d have no more responsibility.”
The loss of professional self-identity is especially acute for men, whose connections and self-definition outside the workplace are often weaker. “Men have traditionally been completely identified with their work,” says Jack Maslow, an 82-year-old clinical therapist who runs men’s groups in Corte Madera, California, and treats patients adjusting to the transition away from work. “Women often have to find other ways to create a sense of who they are outside of what they’re doing,” Beth C. Truesdale, a sociologist who studies retirement and aging at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, told me. “Women often have to find other ways to create a sense of who they are outside of what they’re doing.” Women are more likely to become caregivers, maintain social relationships on behalf of spouses and families, or volunteer in their communities. And by retirement age, women are more likely to have already taken a break from paid work.
Gary Gibler, 77, a former Episcopal deacon from Batavia, Ohio, sees gender conflict in the group of retired men he leads. For decades, Gibler worked as both a vice president and deacon for an insurance company, and also served as a chaplain and preacher at a children’s hospital. When he retired from corporate life in 2015, he started a men’s group at his church, which he will continue to run after he retires as a deacon in 2023. Every Monday morning, 15 men in their 70s and 80s, retired from professions such as engineers, teachers and corporate leaders, meet at their local Panera Bread to talk about news, politics and their lives. Yesterday’s conversation centered on Biden’s announcement, how he handled the particular challenge of being pressured to stop campaigning, and how much courage it took to publicly admit he was no longer the best candidate for the job. “The group thought Joe did the right thing,” Gibler says. But that didn’t change their ambivalence about their own retirement. “Many of them say they would do anything to put on a shirt, tie and go somewhere for an important meeting.”
Retirement doesn’t necessarily mean decline. Mo Wang, a professor at the University of Florida who studies retirement and older workers, estimates that it can have a big impact. positive Retirement leads to adverse psychological health effects in 5 to 10 percent of people who worked primarily physically demanding jobs. But Wang also found that retirement negatively impacts 20 to 25 percent of workers, at least temporarily. Other studies have shown that people who retire completely are more likely to be physically unwell than those who continue to work some form of temporary employment or volunteer work. The effects can be even more dramatic as workers age, because decades of routines of the same weekly schedule, the same commute, the same coworkers can help them get through daily tasks. “They can work much longer because their experience can compensate for cognitive decline,” Wang told me. When they step away from their professional routine, the adjustment can be a sudden awakening.
Many working-class Americans are being forced into early retirement because they can no longer do physically demanding jobs such as construction or waitressing. Truesdale estimates that only 5% of Americans over age 80 are still working, but that number is sure to grow. Baby Boomers are now 78 years old and generally working longer than previous generations. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics project In 2032, adults age 65 and older will make up 8.6% of the labor force, compared with 6.6% in 2022. “Today’s older adult population, let alone the generations to come, has more formal education than any other time in history,” Coughlin said. They’re also Live long Over the next decade, more Americans than ever before will find themselves at a similar disadvantage to Biden, facing delayed retirement that could bring new health challenges.
Like it or not, Biden has embodied the daunting challenge of accepting your job performance and stepping away from it sooner than you would like. Now he has an opportunity to show millions of Americans approaching their 70s and 80s how to accept their limitations and hold onto pride beyond work. The best way to prepare for retirement is to make the transition gradually, Wang said. When you reach 70, work less and start spending time on non-work things, so that by 80 you have a strong identity beyond your professional work. For those who leave jobs with identity-defining tensions, the process will also include mentorship and eldership roles. “Biden is transitioning from a very powerful role, so it’s good to channel that energy into the transition of power,” Wang said.
But preparation may not be enough to resist the lure of employment. Park missed his professional identity so much that this week, at 88, he plans to return to work and resume teaching medical students. “I don’t think you should work until you die,” he told me. “If I went through what Biden is going through, I’d quit too.” But for now, he’s excited to get back to work. He’ll be 89 when his current contract ends. “I would probably say that’s enough,” he said. “But you can’t say never.”