If you knew when you were going to die, would you continue to work?

First off, a few assumptions for the sake of the question:<br><br>* You are an average person with a white-collar job in a high-income country. You are not on death's door at the moment. You have a few decades left.<br>* The job in question does not have a sense of meaning, a sense of accomplishment, a legacy, or any impact on the community. The world will not be any worse without your work. <br>* You are not in significant debt, aside from perhaps a mortgage. Your retirement is fully funded if you live up to your expected age.<br>* You are well enough to enjoy some hobbies, albeit with occasional health concerns. You are not bed-bound or in chronic pain.<br><br>If you knew that you have, say, 20 years left in perfect health, would you keep working? Or, perhaps more importantly, on average, how likely would you be to continue working? (0% - 100%)<br><br>The general consensus is that the answer is no, given the rather liberal assumptions. This is not surprising. Even if you like your job being able to spend time with family, friends, on hobbies, and travel is a big deal. And with 20 years of good health left, there is enough time to enjoy life without the need to worry about your eventual retirement.<br><br>Let's change the assumptions:<br><br>* You have 10 years left in perfect health<br><br>* You have 5 years left in perfect health<br><br>* You have 2 years left in perfect health<br><br>At this point, you probably wouldn't quit your job. Or would you? Even if your job is rather meaningless and you are well-off, you still have 2 years left. You might just continue to work, especially if you don't enjoy travel or don't have any hobbies.<br><br>But why is it that we instinctively know that with 20 years left, we can afford to stop working, but with 2 years left, we can't?<br><br>Is it some sort of loss aversion? We feel that we'll lose our satisfying retirement by dying at 72 instead of 92, but we won't feel the difference between dying at 72 or 74?<br><br>Is it fear of regret? If I die at 92, I could regret that I retired at 72. If I die at 72, I won't regret that I retired at 70<br><br>Is it that we just want to enjoy life now? But is working 2 more years and then enjoying life for 20 years (including the satisfaction of retirement) worse than retiring now and enjoying life for 2 years?<br><br>I'm not talking about workaholics or people who hate living. I am talking about, on average, rational people. In the first scenario, they would retire very quickly. In the second scenario, they would die at their desk. What's the turning point?