Could early retirement kill you?

So it turns out that although early retirement may be the dream for thousands of us, it could actually be bad for your health.

Oregon State University studied participants for 18 years, and found that among healthy retirees 'a one-year older retirement age had an 11% lower risk of all-cause mortality'.

The exact cause of this phenomenon is not completely understood by researchers. However, there are indications that working helps us keep friends, give us the cash for a healthy lifestyle and can also create a sense of purpose.

So it sounds like we should be looking forward to many more years working. It's a good job really, because just last month we reported that one in three over 50s have had to postpone their retirement.

Lack of money means that people are needing to work longer and figures from Aviva showed that a quarter of people found themselves with more debt than they expected in their later years.

The main concern with people working later is whether companies allow them to and whether people are able to gradually reduce their hours before retirement.

But it's not just people's personal situation that is having an impact on their working life. Many people also said they had been surprised by their partner's financial situation and would have to work longer as a direct result of this.

Some also mentioned that they were still having to support their children and so needed to carry on working to allow this.