OLDER people who are retired, home-makers, unemployed, or not working because of illness or disability are more likely to feel their status results in poorer social and mental engagement and lower self-esteem compared to those who work, according to a new study.
This is in contrast to many public perceptions, according to the report from the Medical Research Council/Chief Scientist Office (MRC/CSO) Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, at the University of Glasgow.
It explored attitudes towards employment and non-employment in more than 1500 men and women aged between 55 and 70 living in the west of Scotland, and found that associations were particularly marked among unemployed and sick or disabled respondents. The report said this group also felt that their status was a source of worry and prevented them from feeling in control.
Lead author Dr Elise Whitley said: “There are many individual and societal benefits to extending working lives and the success of future pension systems may be highly reliant on increases in the older workforce and retirement ages.
“However, recent trends have been towards earlier exits from the workplace, not always through choice.
“As well as economic benefits, being employed has other advantages including social contact, daily structure, social identity, status, and regular activity and we wanted to understand whether these factors play a role in explaining known associations between not working and poor physical and mental health.
“Older people who are not working represent a high risk group and, while re-employment may not always be possible, interventions that decrease loneliness, social isolation and boredom, and improve self-esteem offer valuable opportunities to improve health outcomes and promote successful ageing.
“Programmes promoting volunteering and community involvement, or widening access to public transport could help to reduce the negative impact not being in employment has on the health of older adults.” Dr Frank Popham, the report’s co-author, added: “By comparing people changing over time from employment to non-employment, our analysis strengthens the evidence of negative social impacts of certain types of non-employment.”
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