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A new study has found that the majority of peoplethink it's more likely than not that they'll still be working after age 65.  And it doesn't necessarilyhave to do with money. According to a blog post from the Center for Retirement Research at BostonCollege, the study "Latent Work Capacity and RetirementExpectations" found that health was the chief barrier to peopleworking longer, with "adults ranging in age from 18 to 70 … askedto rate themselves on a 1-to-7 scale for 52 different cognitive,physical, psychomotor, and sensory abilities that determine theircapacity to work," said the post, with "abilities run[ning] thegamut from written comprehension, pattern recognition, andoriginality to finger dexterity, reaction time, and visionacuity."

Among those whose abilities did not diminish substantially asthey aged (psychomotor abilities such as manual dexterity andcoordination that were at peak for workers in their 30s but notsubstantially reduced for those in their 60s, and even cognitivedecline, which only went through a minor decline for workers fromage 50 and age 60), researchers were able to calculate thepercentage of occupations each worker would be able to do out of apool of 800 jobs, based on education and training levels.

Researchers discovered that over the life cycle, physicalabilities decline the most, then psychomotor and sensory abilities,with cognitive abilities declining the least. That leads toconcluding that "observed age-declines in ability are largelyinframarginal to job demands, and therefore work capacity isrelatively stable with age."

Among the findings were these: The more occupations people cando, the more likely they were to say they would work past 65;workers over 60 with a higher capacity to work said they would bemore likely to remain employed even after hitting age 70; and aquarter of the retirees with a very high capacity for work wouldconsider "unretiring" and returning to the labor force."

Even among the disabled, the ability to handle jobs increasesthe chance that they too will return to the workforce.

The results imply that if older people are capable of working,they'll do so—something that could make a big difference in howmuch they're able to save for eventual retirement (or how much theycan earn to supplement any retirement income they're alreadyreceiving).

READ MORE:

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