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Abstract Introduction Changes in self-rated health during retirement transition are poorly understood, and previous findings have been inconsistent. This study aimed to examine changes in self-rated health during retirement transition and additionally examine whether those changes differ by gender, marital status, occupational status, and educational attainment using longitudinal studies from Finland and France. Methods Aging public sector employees (n=5813, mean age at baseline 50.4 years, standard deviation 3.6, 56% women) from Finland and occupational cohort from France (n=11363, age 51.9 years, standard deviation 2.5, 22% women), were included in the study. For the analyses, we used an original rating of self-rated health. The mean and mean change estimates and their 95% CI were calculated by using the linear regression models with generalized estimating equations, adjusted for age, sex, marital status, occupational status, educational attainment, smoking status, body mass index and leisure time physical activity levels. Results We observed significant positive changes in self-rated health among the entire study population during the retirement transition, which remained stable or improved thereafter. The improvement was significantly greater among women (vs. men), among those in low occupational class (vs. high), and among those who were single or unmarried (vs. married). Conclusions Self-rated health improves during the retirement transition period as people may have positive perceptions of their health status due to easiness in life because of no work-related stress. The stability in improvement after retirement was seen especially among women, and those who were single or unmarried.
Prakash et al. (Mon,) studied this question.