How are we sure about the direction of cause and effect here? I'd expect more healthier people to self-select the working cohort, all else being equal.
replyIn practice it doesn't really work that way. It isn't like "I am ill bodied, I ought to retire." It is more like "I am ill bodied, but I can't afford to retire, so I must work in some capacity." People who retire early are probably far more likely to be wealthier, and that is correlated with healthspan.
replyYeah this seems like an obvious confounder.
replyDid any of that signal come from people who hadn't spent the last 40 or 50 years working, in a society constructed around working?
replyIf I had a study that showed increased mortality in people who had owned a parrot for 50 years in the year after that parrot died, you wouldn't cite it as evidence of the basic human need for a parrot.