Sarah & Peter

Sometimes research analyses fail to reveal the full picture. On the topic you write about, I suggest this view may apply here.

I suppose I'm pointing to the research 'issue' of association Vs causation.

Your article links mental health and retirement. What I am not reading is material about mental health of humans as they mature.

Is deteriorating mental health a function of aging? Maybe, maybe not - but you don't make any comment on this.

If deteriorating mental health is a function of aging - which (for many) I suspect it may be - then retirement is not necessarily causative. Rather, it is merely associative; another stressful life event like divorce, change of home, loss of drivers license, hip replacement, etc., etc.

Being retired, I concur with the observation you make - "Older adults who are engaged in their communities and spend more time with family and friends have better mental health than others".

From my own (anecdotal observations) those that withdraw from communicative activity +/or have erected barriers between themselves and family do appear to have difficulties.

Maybe a sensible focus should be on (re)introducing retirees (back) into the non working community. And, that such measures be linked to/with an application for Aged Pension.

Cheers

The ANU is where two ideas took shape which have a bearing on thius topic.

When I retired at 56 one of my colleagues warned me that I would suddenly become invisible to all my previous colleagues. I was a member of the Association for Tertiary Education Management (www.atem.org.au). I suggested to ATEM that they should create a Chapter for retired members. so the Emeritus Chapter was created. We call ourselves "The Ghosts" because we are invisible. We raise funds at an annual dinner for the ATEM Foundation and so far have donated over $20,000).

The second opportunity occurred when we were gathered around the grave of Eugene Kamenka. John Molony, the historian, said "There are enough people here to create a very successful small University and we vare all retired". From this moment interested people organised themselves into the ANU Emeritus Faculty (www.anu.edu.au/emeritus).

Both organisations keep me and many others busy and productive.

Giles Pickford

A colleague told me one how most people go into the future...backwards. We want the past to continue; we want to remain active and relevant.

At 76 that's me to a (tee)? I run occasional workshops similar to the ones I ran in the 80's. I tell the same stories because the audiences are new. There's no song like an old song - and there's no joke like an old joke.

Why? Because I haven't found an alternative to suit. Alternatives abound but I've had enough golf, cruising is restrictive and I loathe airports.

So I attend exercise classes three times a week and I feel so well I can hardly stand it.

Well spoken Michael, glad to see you've made retirement 'work' for you, well done. I too, have been 'retired' now for 12 years due to my military service and disabilities caused by that service for my fellow Australians.
OMG, I can't believe I just said that, what a load of crock, the only folks who benefited from my service were the banks/politicians/manufacturers of war materiale. Just as they are currently doing today.
I too, thought I'd involve myself in community service, however that was quickly discarded when demands were made by such 'volunteer' organisations for access to my medical history. Imagine that, I'm volunteering my services for FREE, to help other less fortunate then myself, BUT first I'd need to allow the organisation free access to my medical history. Seriously, this is TRUE story. I stood to gain not one cent, yet this organisation wanted unfettered access to my history medicaly ? When I asked what they need that for and what they intended to do with it, I was refused an answer ? Do people today really give away such information so easily ? Apparently they do, never giving any thought to the implications to what they are doing.
Then I volunteered my services to Conservation group, this meant once a month I'd need to drive 280 kilometers return, camp out over night at my expense, and maintain a track that was a highly sought after tourist attraction.
After doing this for a year, I was invited to a Xmas BBQ, and in the invite I was told to bring all my own food, but the organisation was wiling to provide 'two' cans of soft drink free. Seriously.
This very same organisation had no less then FOUR fulltime workers being paid a salary on the four figures mark and the lurks and perks that go with it, plus they were raking in thousands of dollars from the toursists and groups who were paying up to $500 a week to walk the track I was maintaining for FREE. I confess, when I found that out, all enthusiasm for volunteer work went down the gurgler fast.
IMHO, I did all the 'volunteer' work I'm ever again likely to do, whilst still working, as a Union representative, representing my fellow workers in the work place and days and days in the Industrial Relations Courts, something to this day, I've never ever received a thank you for, or even recognition, thought that's not why I did it.
You are correct though, when you say folks need to purchase things BEFORE they retire, I advise replacing EVERY WHITE GOOD and ELECTRICAL device in the home before you retire, whilst you can still work some O/T to cover it, once you retire, it's very hard to do this, and most such goods are near their replacement time by the time you retire anyway.
I also counsel people, to give themselves at least TWO YEARS coming to grips with retirement and to REDISCOVER themselves, who they are, trying to direct them to that person they were when they left school, as from that moment onwards, the moulding to their employers demands began, and so it continued throughtout their working lives.
I'm a dedicated bushwalker, spend much of my retirement in this way in good company covering much of my state, IMHO, there are not enough hours in the day for me to do the things I still wish to do before I exit this earth.
Oh, the last 'EXCELLENT' book I've read was, THE BIGGEST ESTATE ON EARTH, How Aborigines Made Australia,
By Bill Gammage. Published by ALLEN&UNWIN.
A most excellent read and I highly recommend for anyone who wishes to understand our indigenous people better, and the land this was before the whiteman destroyed it.

"Studies comparing the mental health of retirees with that of working older adults has shown that retirees (particularly men) tend to have greater levels of depression and anxiety than their working peers."

One thing conspicuously omitted from this claim and quite clear in the citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16171915 is that this effect only occurs among younger retirees, i.e. not "for retired men of, or nearing, the traditional retirement age of 65" as the cite points out.

Another problem with these studies is that they never separate the financially well-off retirees from the financially poorly-off retirees so we never know whether it's money that's the cause of the problem or something other than money. It makes me feel that some sort of ideological barrow is being pushed.