Objective:
Japan is the highest aging society in the world, and older people involved in the active labor force to maintain the economy during the last decade. The aging workforce as a high-risk population, health-related characteristics should be described. The characteristics will be compared between retirees to working older people.
Material and Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional study targeting the whole community-dwelling older adults aged ≥60 years in a town, Tochigi, Japan. Employment status was simply asked a yes/no question. The health-related characteristics and demographic information were corrected using a self-administered questionnaire. Differences between retirees to working older people were examined using chi-squared tests.
Results
Of 1,921 community-dwelling older people, 1,018 completed the questionnaire (53% female, 25% working, and 49% aged between 70 to 79). 23% of working participants were also experiencing caring for an older family member. Chi-squared tests revealed that people in the workforce were significantly associated with good subjective health (p = 0.004). The retirees were significantly associated with depressive mood (p < 0.01) and regular exercise (p < 0.01), whereas no significant differences were found for having medical conditions that required treatment (p = 0.44).
