Are Baby Boomers Living Well Longer?

This chapter uses the Health and Retirement Study to describe the relationship between work and health for older persons by age. We examine not only the patterns within a given cross-section, but also we study trends in health at ages 51-56 between 1992 and 2004. Most retirement occurs well before the onset of work-limiting disability, leaving a large reserve of potential for longer worklives. Baby Boomers will likely have to draw on this reserve, yet its health is not demonstrably better than that of persons born a dozen years earlier. Nevertheless, advances in medical care for health conditions that most 51-56 year olds have not yet encountered may still yield better health at older ages for the Boomer cohort.