Objectives Age at permanent retirement is of interest both from an occupational health perspective as an indicator of health risks and from a societal perspective, where keeping an ageing population at work is a priority. The Danish nationwide individual level database DOC*X includes labour market affiliation and job type for employed residents in Denmark in the years 1970–2012. The aim of this study is to investigate differences in retirement between job titles.

Methods Data on permanent retirement was obtained from administrative registries for the years 1980–1990 and 1994–2012. Each job title was coded by the Danish version of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (DISCO-88). We calculated mean age at retirement in years (MAR) and age-and-sex standardised retirement risk ratios (SRR) according to five year periods and DISCO-88 groups (first digit).

Results The number of employed persons varied between 2.0 and 2.7 million yearly, whereof job title was identified for around 75%.

MAR was substantially higher among persons with non-manual compared to manual jobs (men: 64.6 versus 61.6 years) and (women: 63.3 versus 60.8 years). In 2011–2012 SRR was between 0.44 and 1.55 for women and 0.40 and 1.12 for men. Manual jobs had consistently increased SSR throughout the study period, but the relative difference between manual and non-manual jobs increased from 2.0 in the early 1980’ties to 5.4 in the mid-1990’ties and decreased to 1.9 in the latest years.

Conclusion Manual jobs have an increased standardised retirement risk and a lower mean age of retirement compared to non-manual jobs.