Who works while sick and who enjoys the golden years? Changing disparities in time spent in health and work after age 50 in the United States

Abstract While full retirement age in the United States is increasing, longevity improvements have stagnated, Americans with low educational attainment have not experienced delayed health impairments, and there remain substantial racial disparities in morbidity and mortality. Using the Health and Retirement Study, we ran discrete-time multistate models to examine how these trends together shape educational and racial/ethnic differences in expected time spent in healthy work, unhealthy work, healthy retirement, and unhealthy retirement after age 50 in 1994–2006 and 2008–2020. We found marked educational, and to a lesser degree racial/ethnic, disparities in accessing healthy retirement years—which we defined as years without work and without functional limitations. Compared to 1994–2006, 2008–2020 brought increases in healthy retirement only for college-educated White and Black women (+0.49 and +0.21 years respectively). Healthy work increased for college-educated White and Hispanic men (+1.35 and +0.49 years respectively) and for White and Hispanic women with a range of education levels. Disadvantaged groups (e.g., men with only high school degrees, Black and Hispanic women without high school degrees) experienced increased years in unhealthy retirement. Unhealthy work rose for Hispanic men and women and Black men with medium and high education. Taken together, it appears that trends in retirement timing, functioning, and mortality have reduced overall healthy retirement years and expanded educational and racial/ethnic disparities in accessing healthy retirement.