This contribution examines whether and how the age of transition into retirement influences mortality. Many factors can be important for  he correlation between age at retirement and mortality: the degree of stress at the workplace, for instance, or individual behaviour after retirement that is either conducive or detrimental to health. An evaluation of Norwegian data shows that an early retirement age entails a higher mortality risk than is the case for later retirement. This means that later retirement does not only improve the ratio of the number of economically active to the inactive and hence reduce the burden of social insurance systems, it may also raise the life expectancy of the total population.