Could Staying Healthy Let You Work 10 More Years? What It’s Worth, And What The Research Says

By Stuart, yoga teacher, Flametree Yoga Darwin. Last updated: 8 November 2026.

Average retirement age in Australia, and staying healthy: the short answer

The average retirement age in Australia is 63.8. Yet a 65-year-old today can expect another 20 to 23 years of life. So here is the question: if you stayed healthy enough to keep working, even part time, for ten more years, what would that be worth?

For an average full-time earner, ten extra years of work comes to about $1.08 million in wages before tax, plus about $133,000 more in super. That is in today’s dollars (after allowing for inflation). Working three days a week, it is still about $650,000 in wages and $80,000 in super.

The catch is health. Ill health is one of the main reasons people stop work early. That is where looking after your body, and your stress, comes in. Here is the article in short form.

This article in short

• Australians stop work at 63.8 on average, three years before the Age Pension age of 67.
• Healthy years run out before life does. At 65, about half of the years ahead are lived with some disability.
• Ten more working years could be worth over $1 million to an average full-time earner, before tax.
• Other countries are already working longer. In Japan, about half of people aged 65 to 69 have a job.
• Working longer is not automatically good or bad for health. It depends on your health, your job and whether you chose it.
• Yoga works on what pushes people out of work early: pain, stiffness and stress.

The money is real, but only if your health lets you choose to keep working.

Average retirement age in Australia: when do people really stop work?

The Age Pension age is 67. But the average Australian who retired in 2024-25 did so at 63.8 (64.9 for men, 62.7 for women). People aged 45 and over say they plan to retire at about 65.6. These figures come from the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics).

Meanwhile, we are living longer. A man who reaches 65 can expect about 20 more years, and a woman about 23 more years (ABS, 2022 to 2024).

Here is the part that matters most. Not all those years are healthy ones. The AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) measures this two ways.

On the first measure, which counts illness by how heavy it is, men at 65 can expect about 15 years in full health and women about 17. On the second, which counts any disability at all, even a mild one, the picture is starker. Men can expect about 9 years free of disability and women about 10. About half of the years after 65 are lived with some level of disability.

So the race is not just to live longer. It is to stay well for longer.

The average retirement age in Australia comes well before most of the healthy years run out. Staying well is what keeps the choice open.

In Darwin this matters even more. Life expectancy in the Northern Territory is lower than the national average: 77.0 years for men and 80.7 for women, against 81.1 and 85.1 nationally.

How does Australia compare with the UK and other countries?

The UK is the country most like Australia, so it is a good place to look. People there now leave work at an average of 65.8 (men) and 64.7 (women), the highest on record (UK Department for Work and Pensions, 2025). The UK pension age is rising from 66 to 67, and later to 68.

But the UK has the same healthy-years problem. In England, a 65-year-old can expect only about 10 healthy years (men) and 11 (women). And from birth, people in the richest areas of England can expect about 19 to 20 more healthy years than people in the poorest (ONS, the Office for National Statistics).

Across the OECD (38 wealthy countries), the average person leaves work at about 64.7 (men) and 63.6 (women), then spends about 19 to 23 years in retirement. Nine countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, now link their pension age to how long people live. Australia does not.

Two countries stand out for working later:

• Japan: about 50% of people aged 65 to 69 have a job, and about a third of people aged 70 to 74 (2020).
• New Zealand: about 47% of people aged 65 to 69 are in the workforce (2025).

Some of those people work because they need the money, not because they are healthy. Even so, it shows that work in your late 60s and 70s is normal in other places.

What could ten more working years be worth to you?

We ran the numbers for one person, in today’s dollars. This is an illustration, not financial advice. It uses the average full-time wage ($108,350 a year), 2026-27 tax rates, 12% super, and a 4% return after inflation. It leaves out tax offsets, so the after-tax figures are a little on the low side.

Who	10 extra years: wages before tax	After tax	Extra super
Average earner, full time	$1,083,500	$828,900	$132,700
Average earner, 3 days a week	$650,100	$534,200	$79,600
One and a half times average, full time	$1,625,300	$1,178,000	$199,000
One and a half times average, 3 days a week	$975,200	$755,200	$119,400

Ten more working years, in today’s dollars. An illustration for one person, not financial advice.

Spread over 20 years of retirement, that extra super alone adds about $9,800 a year for the average full-time earner. And while you are earning a wage, you are less likely to be drawing the Age Pension.

Is working longer good for your health?

The honest answer: it depends. The research is mixed, and here is why.

Sick people retire earlier. This is the strongest finding of all. It makes retirement look bad for health in simple comparisons, because many people stop work because they are already unwell. When studies allow for this, the link between retiring and dying earlier mostly fades.

Memory may slow after retiring. In a long study of 3,433 British civil servants (Whitehall II), memory declined faster after people retired (Xue 2018). A review of 23 studies found a slight effect on memory, and none on thinking overall. The effect looks bigger for people who leave mentally busy jobs.

The type of job matters. When the UK raised the pension age for women, depression rose among women in high-strain jobs (lots of demands, little control) who had to keep working (Carrino 2020). In the Netherlands, men in the civil service who could retire early had lower death rates. For hard physical jobs, retiring can bring relief.

The best position is having the choice, and that comes from staying well.

So working longer is not a magic pill. The best outcome is having the choice: being well enough that you can keep going, at a pace you enjoy, if you want to.

What is it worth to Australia?

Several groups have put a figure on it. Deloitte (2012) estimated that lifting the share of people over 55 in work by 5 points would add about $48 billion a year to the economy (in 2009-10 dollars). KPMG (2026) put lifting work rates for 55 to 64-year-olds at about $29 billion a year.

And ill health is a big part of the gap. One Australian study estimated that ill health kept about 663,000 people aged 45 to 64 out of work, costing about $14.7 billion a year (Schofield 2008, using 2003 data).

Where yoga fits

No study has yet tested whether yoga helps people work longer. Not yet tested is not the same as not working. So look at what pushes people out of work early, and what yoga does for each of those things.

Pain, a body that does too much of one thing, and stress: the three things a regular yoga practice works on.

• Pain and stiffness. In Whitehall II, long-term illness and recurring back pain predicted leaving work for health reasons. Back pain has strong research support for yoga (see our Yoga For Health Conditions Encyclopaedia).
• Hard physical work with little exercise outside it. In a Norwegian study of 32,362 people, those with physically demanding jobs and low activity in their spare time were about 1.8 times as likely to end up on a disability pension.
• Stress. A review of 15 trials with 688 healthcare workers found yoga lowered work stress, more than the other relaxation methods tested (Zhang 2021).

In our view, these are exactly the things a regular yoga and breathing practice works on: a stronger, looser body, better balance, and a calmer mind. Many of our students in their 60s and 70s tell us yoga is what keeps them working, travelling and looking after grandchildren.

For more on staying well as you get older, see our guide to healthy ageing and yoga, and our gentle yoga for seniors in Darwin.

Staying strong past the average retirement age in Australia

Frequently asked questions

What is the average retirement age in Australia?

About 63.8 for people who retired in 2024-25 (64.9 for men, 62.7 for women). The Age Pension age is 67.

How long will I live after 65?

On average, about 20 more years for men and 23 for women. About half of those years are lived with some disability.

Is it healthier to keep working?

Not always. The research is mixed. It seems to help memory for some people, but staying in a stressful or very physical job can harm health. Being well enough to choose is what matters most.

Can yoga help me work for longer?

It has not been tested directly. But yoga has good research for back pain, stiffness, balance and stress, which are among the main reasons people leave work early.

Come and try a class

If you’d like to stay well enough to choose how long you work, start with a class, in Darwin or LIVE online.

• New to yoga? Half price beginner classes, plus 2 free.
• Done yoga before, or coming back? 2 free classes plus 10 at half price.
• See class times and book here.

Sources

• ABS, Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia, 2024-25; Life Tables, 2022-2024; Average Weekly Earnings, May 2026.
• AIHW, Older Australians: health status and functioning (healthy life expectancy and disability at 65).
• Treasury, 2026 Intergenerational Report.
• UK Department for Work and Pensions, Economic labour market status of individuals aged 50 and over, 2025; ONS, Health state life expectancies, 2021 to 2023; ONS, Healthy life expectancy by national area deprivation, 2022 to 2024.
• OECD, Pensions at a Glance 2025.
• Xue B et al 2018, European Journal of Epidemiology, Whitehall II, retirement and cognitive decline.
• Carrino L et al 2020, Health Economics, pension age reform and women’s mental health (UK).
• Bloemen H et al 2017, Health Economics, early retirement and mortality among Dutch civil servants.
• Lallukka T et al 2018, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, back pain and health-related job exit (Whitehall II).
• Deloitte Access Economics 2012, Increasing participation among older workers; KPMG 2026.
• Schofield D et al 2008, Medical Journal of Australia, chronic disease and labour force participation among older Australians.
• Fimland M et al 2018, Occupational and Environmental Medicine 75:23-28 (HUNT study).
• Zhang M et al 2021, Journal of Occupational Health 63:e12243.