Research Highlight: Does retirement increase risk of depression, or protect from it?

Retirement is a major life transition, which usually involves both opportunities and challenges for mental and physical health. Researchers have attempted to understand the impact retirement has on both physical health and mental health, with mixed findings. Partly, it is often difficult to untangle whether retirement led to poor health, or poor health led to retirement. So there has not been real consensus on the impact of retirement on health and wellbeing.