TUESDAY, Nov. 17, 2020 — The transition to retirement is accompanied by an abrupt increase in prolonged sedentary time in women and a more gradual increase in men, according to a study published online Nov. 17 in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

Kristin Suorsa, from the University of Turku in Finland, and colleagues examined changes in daily total, prolonged (≥30 minutes), and highly prolonged (≥60 minutes) sedentary time across the transition to retirement by gender and occupational status. The analysis included 689 aging workers (mean age before retirement, 63.2 years; 85 percent women) with accelerometer data participating in the Finnish Retirement and Aging Study.

The researchers found that women increased daily total sedentary time by 22 minutes, prolonged sedentary time by 34 minutes, and highly prolonged sedentary time by 15 minutes during the transition to retirement. These levels remained at the higher level of sedentary time years after retirement. Women retiring from manual occupations showed the highest increase in total and prolonged sedentary time. Before and after retirement, men had more total and prolonged sedentary time versus women. During the retirement transition, there were no changes noted in men’s sedentary time, although the investigators observed a gradual increase of 33 minutes in prolonged sedentary time from preretirement years to postretirement years.

“The transition to retirement could be a suitable time period for interventions to decrease sedentary time,” the authors write.

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