I heard that the statistic is that you live 6 months, on average, after retirement. My great-grandmother’s second husband (so not my great-grandfather), retired and was driving home from his retirement party and felt sick. He decided to stop by the hospital and get checked over on the way home (this was in rural Ohio, and home was some distance from his work), and it turned out he had terminal cancer. He spent a few days, maybe a week or so, in the hospital and died. He never got to have one day of retirement (well, outside the hospital, dying).
Well, I’ve done a little searching, and according to this study, the older you retire the shorter you live:
Longevity Vs. Retirement Age
“Dr. Ephrem (Siao Chung) Cheng provided the important results in the
following table from an actuarial study of life span vs. age at
retirement. The study was based on the number of pension checks sent
to retirees of Boeing Aerospace.“
Age at Retirement Average Age at Death
49.9-— 86.0
51.2-— 85.3
52.5-— 84.6
53.8-— 83.9
55.1-— 83.2
56.4-— 82.5
57.2-— 81.4
58.3-— 80.0
59.2-— 78.5
60.1-— 76.8
61.0-— 74.5
62.1-— 71.8
63.1-— 69.3
64.1-— 67.9
65.2-— 66.8
“This indicates that for people retired at the age of 50, their
average life span is 86; whereas for people retired at the age of 65,
their average life span is only 66.8. An important conclusion from
this study is that for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2
years of life span on average.”
http://www.seeya-downtheroad.com/InformationPage/WhyRetireYoung.html
So, maybe if you are over 65, the average person DOES die within 6 months...