Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

goda90

I believe there have been studies into how social life impacts longevity, and probably cognitive decline as well. For some people, like my great-grandmother who kept working well into her 80s by choice, jobs can be a big social outlet. For others a job can be very socially isolating. Those factors probably matter a lot. Side note: I'm sure we'll see research into these areas used to propose delaying retirement age more in the near future.

LeCompteSftware

It's 48 pages and I haven't read it fully, but it seems almost childlike that the paper doesn't address the obvious confounding variable: "Does Unemployment Make It More Likely for Late Middle-Aged People, Particularly Men, To Drink Alcohol? Evidence From We Obviously Should Have Considered This In The Paper, Perhaps We Are Too Sheltered" To be clear I am not being pedantic. The paper explicitly endorses the policy of pushing back the retirement age specifically because doing so likely reduces cognitive decline. I agree with this, in the same sense that shooting car thieves in the street without a trial reduces automotive theft. "Reducing cognitive decline in people near retirement age" might be better met with psychiatric intervention, so that unemployed people also get some of the benefits. Ignoring this confounding variable and prattling about "causal explanation" - while endorsing the policy of snatching away people's pensions until they work a few more years - is evil born from ignorance.

jdw64

I finally found the reason why my cognitive function feels like that of a 7years old child.

rts_cts

A strangely click-baity title for an academic paper. What's next? "Four crazy macroeconomic predictions. You won't believe what's number four!"

dec0dedab0de

I think employment may set us up for rapid cognitive decline when we finally become unemployed. As in, working 40+ hours a week makes us over-value "vegging out", which sets us up for failure post-employment.

nate

We probably all have anecdotal evidence here, but my father is a perfect example of being no longer employed and a ton of stuff declining. Yes, cognitively, but a lot of health. We're talking not just your "career". He was a commercial real estate agent. But in his 80s he was working at Menards as a greeter and stocker. And it kept him busy. Getting out of the house. Figuring things out. Meeting and talking to people. Walking. Talking. Scheduling things. He'd even tell us that if he stopped, things would just descend. And he was so right. He had to stop to help take more care of my mom, and quickly, he just fell out of all these things. Cognitively. Health. Ability to do anything decision wise or to better himself just tanked. Sample size of 1. A ton of confounding variables. But definitely wasn't his choice to stop working at a place because of health. The poor health came after being forced to quit. Does make me worry about "taking it easy" when I get older whatever that means :)

Bender

I've been retired for about 5 years and I am just as loony now as I was when employed. HN, my own silly hobby sites, flirting with the gals in town and wildlife keep me active.

giantg2

I feel like this is less about employment and more a factor of money and engagement. You need some amount of money for good health insurance, healthier foods, lower stress, etc. You need engagement, but that could be found in volunteering and sufficiently complex hobbies. The trend seen with employment cycles might just be picking up that many people lack these.

josefritzishere

This feels like propaganda, like a peice from the Economist.

bitwize

Anecdata: My dad started experiencing memory problems in his early 70s. When he got back into engineering as a part time consultant, those memory problems went away.

tombert

Interesting. I haven't read the paper yet so forgive a bit of ignorance here, but I feel like when I'm unemployed, I actively spend all my time trying to learn new things. This is no small part because otherwise I get depressed because I am spending all my time on YouTube and there are only so many "documentaries" about Lolcows that I can stomach, so I dive head first into projects, usually buying a few cheap textbooks in the process to play with new things. The days are way too long if I don't have something interesting to occupy my time, and I feel less guilty if that time is spent doing something quasi-intellectual instead of playing Donkey Kong Country again. I didn't think I was an outlier with this, but maybe I am?

animitronix

Classic "use it or lose it". No big surprise here.

keybored

> Nevertheless, our group-average findings, if replicated by others, would hold clear policy implications. Federal efforts to promote work at pre-retirement ages would not only reduce reliance on SSDI and enhance retirement security, but would also promote healthy aging through delaying cognitive decline. Fuck you. Christopher Lasch wrote that our “culture of narcissism” detests aging. Unsurprisingly we, the narcissists, are horrified when we ourselves become old. Because there is hardly anything left for us. You can subtract pure biology, i.e. normal bodily degradation. But you can also subtract respect, esteem, wisdom (because who cares what grandpa has to say?), family (see care homes), and socializing.[1] You’re not an “asset” (to use familiar language[2]) to anyone. Just a burden. What becomes the solution to any of that? No, no. We don’t need solutions to old people problems. We need solutions to them being burdens . So how to make them less of a drag on our collective selves: encourage them to work at their shitty jobs for longer. [1] See the old man who meets you again after six months and talks way too much about what he’s up to. Does he have any other outlets? [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47873477

b00ty4breakfast

The problem isn't retirement per se, it is that people don't have things to occupy themselves with. They retire and they vegetate. I worked with a lady that was in her 70s who was deathly afraid of retiring because she didn't have anything to do. That's beyond depressing to me, to be incapable of even conceiving of doing something that doesn't involve going to a job. We have created people that never develop as human beings outside the context of their being economic entities in the workforce and that's not something to celebrate.

moneycantbuy

Does slavery slow cognitive decline? Capitalist propaganda says being a wagie is good for us. That being said people are so indoctrinated that they have no idea what to do without an employer. pretty fucked up society and culture we now find ourselves in.

gcheong

I would hypothesize that this is strongly correlated to where a person's sense of purpose comes from. If someone gets most of their sense of purpose from their job then you would expect to see a decline once they leave their job if they can't replace it with something else. For those whose sense of purpose is derived mainly outside of work and can continue to derive that sense of purpose in retirement, I would expect less of a decline in retirement other than normal aging.

ecshafer

There have been studies that show that elderly who interact with children are cognitively healthier compared to their counter parts.

logickkk1

I don't think this is "work is medicine." It's that too much of normal life depends on having a job, so policy lands on working longer.

kelvinjps10

It reminds of my grandparents that refuse to stop working my grandma 65 and grandfather 73. My grandma has like a stand where she sells candies and coffee and for her is just a way for socializing. And my grandpa he's still trying businesses out he thinks that there is still time for him to become rich, he's still very sharp and active he currently sells car tools and he's walking everyday

TheGRS

I know I interact with people on the daily with my remote job, but would love to know if that's potentially an issue too. Decent reason to get back in the office. I also miss my daily office bike rides to a certain extent, at least it was healthy for me, now I do exercise by choice and I don't always keep up with it.