Emotional Well-Being Trajectories Before and After Statutory Retirement—Contributions of Social and Health-Related Factors

They find that mentally very strenuous work and mental disorder diagnoses were linked to a higher predicted probability of the ‘Fast increasing, then fast decreasing’ trajectory. Most participants maintained high emotional well-being throughout the statutory retirement transition. A smaller group of individuals experienced lower emotional well-being before statutory retirement and a gradual improvement after, or saw an increase until retirement, followed by a rapid decline. Mentally very strenuous work, binge drinking, smoking, frequent sleep problems, and mental disorder diagnoses before retirement were associated with poorer emotional well-being trajectories. With targeted interventions we could explore whether a change in these factors could enhance emotional well-being across retirement.