Sleep problems after 50 may shorten working life by almost a year

Good-quality and consistent sleep in middle age is associated with a longer working life, according to a large study of working-age Finnish men and women.

The findings were published in the scientific journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

Significant sleep problems and sleeping for nine hours or more per night after the age of 50 were associated with a reduction of approximately nine months in expected working life.

Researchers analyzed data from two Finnish observational studies involving more than 76,000 people. Participants reported their sleep duration and quality after turning 50, while information about their employment was obtained from national pension and employment registers.

Sleep duration was generally divided into three categories: less than seven hours, 7–8.5 hours, and nine hours or more per night. Sleep problems included difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, waking up too early, and feeling that sleep was not restorative. The researchers further classified sleep problems as moderate or severe.

Participants without sleep problems could expect to remain in the workforce for an average of about 13 years and five months after turning 50. For those with moderate sleep problems, the figure was approximately 13 years, while people with severe sleep problems had an expected working life of about 12 years and 10 months.

In other words, severe sleep problems were associated with a reduction of almost eight months in expected working life.

Sleep duration also matters

The amount of sleep was also associated with working-life expectancy. Participants who slept 7–8.5 hours and those who slept less than seven hours had similar expected working-life durations.

By contrast, sleeping nine hours or more per night was associated with a shorter period of employment.

In one of the studies, people who slept at least nine hours a night had an expected working life after age 50 that was approximately nine months shorter than that of participants sleeping 7–8.5 hours. In the second study, the difference exceeded 2.5 years.

The researchers emphasize that the study was observational, meaning that it identified an association rather than proving that sleep problems directly cause people to leave the workforce earlier.

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