Despite evidence to the contrary, the idea that retirement harms health continues to have wide credibility. This article examines the possibility that retirement contributed to decline in self-reported health among a panel of 112 men who retired between baseline measurement in 1975 and follow-up measurement in 1978. Within-individual changes in self-reported health for these retirees were compared with changes among 386 age peers (fifty-six to sixty-seven at follow-up) who continued to work from T1 to T2. For all men working and in favorable health at T1, eventual retirees had no greater age-adjusted incidence of health decline than did continuing workers. Moreover, when retirees were asked directly whether retiring had affected their health, only 2 per cent claimed a “bad” effect. Collating our findings with previous evidence, we concluded that retirement-related changes for the worse in self-perceived health were infrequent events.
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