I just turned 67 and regret retiring from work last year — even with the fat $107,000 payout I received. Should I get another job or just give in and get a golf membership?

Knowing how work versus play delineates your happiness divide is crucial. In this hypothetical example, we’ll meet Jimmy, whose six-figure parting gift from his employer hasn’t purchased the joy and ease he imagined. And to think: For decades he complained about office politics and lousy burritos in the company cafeteria.

Before he pursues another job or purchases a new set of golf clubs, there’s plenty Jimmy wants to weigh first. Here’s what he’ll need to consider that could burnish or tarnish his golden years.

How to work out the work side

If you want to (and don’t have to) return to work, the stats tilt in your favor. The Social Security Administration found a correlation between retirement and increased odds of mortality as far back as 2001. As of 2018, researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research mostly correlated retirement deaths to men, as “male mortality increases by about 2% at age 62… with [a] larger [increase] for unmarried men and men without a high school diploma.”

In an Insights on Retirement study, T. Rowe Price identified two reasons people take back their hats after hanging them up: emotional benefits and financial advantages. Roughly 20% of retirees worked either full- or part-time, while 7% reported looking for employment. Of the more than 4,000 retirees surveyed, 45% chose to work for social and emotional benefits.

If you also like the money, fine — but this can cut both ways. In terms of dollars and cents, Social Security payments drop when you work. If you’re under the full retirement age or FRA (67 for those born in 1960 or later), the government deducts $1 from benefits for every $2 earned above the annual limit of $22,320. If you’ve reached the FRA, you’ll lose $1 for every $3 you earn above $59,520.

But before Jimmy re-chains himself to his desk, he realizes that unretirement needn’t be an all-or-nothing proposition. He can also leverage his hard-won workplace competencies by going part-time, teaching or shifting gears into volunteer roles.

Playing out the play scenario

Yet working too hard can make time vanish in an eyeblink, and time becomes especially precious after 60, with the average life expectancy currently 77.5 years, according to the [CDC. Why not “work” at recreation, which literally calls Jimmy to “re-create” himself?

If you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 45 years (ages 20 to 65, let’s say), then you’ve already logged 90,000 hours, or roughly 16% of your entire lifetime up to that point. Add sleep and you haven’t seen nearly as much of your family and friends as you might think: eight hours of work plus eight hours of sleep leaves just eight hours for other people and activities per working day.

Jimmy would be in good company if he chooses 18 holes. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its 2023 American Time Use Survey found that in 2023, those 65 to 75 spent more hours in leisure and sports than any group up to that age bracket: 6.71 hours per day. Golf falls under that category — though interestingly, half an hour is spent “relaxing and thinking.” (Thinking about what the survey doesn't say. Golf, maybe.)

Free time also means commiserating with companions and loved ones: Relationships matter, unequivocally. On the minus side, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco in 2012 linked loneliness to health problems and death. The opposite proves true for those socially connected. Better mental and physical health, a sense of belonging, and increased physical activity rank among the documented benefits — which in sum may “buy” you more precious time.

And so, maybe Jimmy gets a part-time gig, earns the dough to buy new clubs and hits the links with his buds. Doing so might even mean he enjoys the back nine of his life all that much more.