You are probably not looking for a reason to retire early.  The reason is fairly obvious.  Early retirement may be much more pleasant that working well into one’s 60s or 70s or beyond.  But here’s another reason that renders early retirement more appealing – it could lengthen your life.  That’s the conclusion of research made available over the years as well as from a 2017 study published in the journal Health Economics.  As indicated by The New York Times, in that study, three economists from the Netherlands analyzed what transpired when some Dutch civil servants could temporarily quality for early retirement in 2005. Men responding to the early retirement offer were nearly three percentage points less likely to die over the next five years than those who did not retire early. Parenthetically, too few women met the early retirement eligibility criteria to be included in the study. In any case, these findings echo those of other studies. For instance, an analysis in the U.S. found that seven years of retirement can be as good for one’s health as reducing by 20 percent the chance of acquiring a serious disease like diabetes or heart conditions. The salubrious effects of retirement have also been discerned in studies using data from England, Germany, and Israel. This likely reflects the fact that for many people, work can be stressful and can leave little time for exercise.