Mental work demands, retirement, and longitudinal trajectories of cognitive functioning (original) (raw)
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Occupation, retirement and cognitive functioning
Ageing and Society, 2016
The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal impact of the duration of retirement on the cognitive functioning of male elderly workers in Japan using data from the National Survey of Japanese Elderly. We explore how the complexity of a worker's longest served job affects cognitive functioning after retirement. In particular, we investigate eight dimensions of the longest served job using information listed in the United States Dictionary of Occupational Titles, namely physical demands, mathematical development, reasoning development, language development, the job's relationship to data, the job's relationship to people, the job's relationship to things and the specific vocational preparation required. Our estimator takes account of the potential endogeneity of the duration of retirement and the left-censoring of the duration of retirement. Our empirical evidence suggests that the duration of retirement has a negative and significant impact on cognitive function...
Occupational and environmental medicine, 2016
Psychosocial work characteristics may predict cognitive functioning after retirement. However, little research has explored specific cognitive domains associated with psychosocial work environments. Our study tested whether exposure to job demands, job control and their combination during working life predicted post-retirement performance on eight cognitive tests. We used data from French GAZEL cohort members who had undergone post-retirement cognitive testing (n=2149). Psychosocial job characteristics were measured on average for 4 years before retirement using Karasek's Job Content Questionnaire (job demands, job control and demand-control combinations). We tested associations between these exposures and post-retirement performance on tests for executive function, visual-motor speed, psychomotor speed, verbal memory, and verbal fluency using ordinary least squares regression. Low job control during working life was negatively associated with executive function, psychomotor spe...
Effect of retirement on cognitive function: the Whitehall II cohort study
European journal of epidemiology, 2017
According to the 'use it or lose it' hypothesis, a lack of mentally challenging activities might exacerbate the loss of cognitive function. On this basis, retirement has been suggested to increase the risk of cognitive decline, but evidence from studies with long follow-up is lacking. We tested this hypothesis in a cohort of 3433 civil servants who participated in the Whitehall II Study, including repeated measurements of cognitive functioning up to 14 years before and 14 years after retirement. Piecewise models, centred at the year of retirement, were used to compare trajectories of verbal memory, abstract reasoning, phonemic verbal fluency, and semantic verbal fluency before and after retirement. We found that all domains of cognition declined over time. Declines in verbal memory were 38% faster after retirement compared to before, after taking account of age-related decline. In analyses stratified by employment grade, higher employment grade was protective against verbal ...
The Effect of Retirement on Cognitive Functioning
Health Economics, 2012
Cognitive impairment has emerged as a major driver of disability in old age, with profound effects on individual well-being and decision-making at older ages. Decelerating its decline among the elderly is one of the main challenges for ageing societies. In the light of policies aimed at postponing retirement ages, an important question is whether retirement has an influence on the descend rate. Among the life style and psychosocial risk factors, intellectual stimulation has often been mentioned as a key factor in maintaining high levels of cognitive functioning. We use data from the HRS to estimate a model for the change in cognitive functioning. As retirement and cognitive functioning may be endogenously related, we use unexpected early retirement window offers to instrument for retirement behavior. These offers are legally required to be unrelated to the baseline health of the individual, and are significant predictors of retirement. While the simple OLS estimates show a negative relation between retirement and the rate of decline in various measures of cognitive functioning, instrumental variables estimates suggest that this may not be a causal effect. In particular, we do not find a clear relationship for white-collar workers and a positive relation for blue-collar workers. * We would like to thank seminar and conference participants at the University of Mannheim, Stockholm University, the RAND Corporation, and the 7 th iHEA World Congress in Beijing for very helpful comments.
Retirement and cognitive development: are the retired really inactive?
2012
This paper uses longitudinal test data to analyze the relation between retirement and cognitive development. Controlling for individual …xed e¤ects and lagged cognition, we …nd that retirees face greater declines in information processing speed than those who remain employed. However, remarkably, their cognitive ‡exibility declines less, an e¤ect that appears to be persistent 6 years after retirement. Both e¤ects of retirement on cognitive development are comparable to the e¤ect of a …ve to six-year age di¤erence. We show that the e¤ects of retirement on cognitive decline cannot be explained by (1) a relief e¤ect after being employed in low-skilled jobs, (2) mood swings or (3) changes in lifestyle. Controlling for changes in blood pressure, which are negatively related to cognitive ‡exibility, we still …nd lower declines in cognitive ‡exibility for retirees. Since the decline in information processing speed after retirement holds particularly for the low educated, activating these persons after retirement could lower the social costs of an aging society. JEL Classi…cation: J24, J26.
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2016
According to the use it or lose it hypothesis, intellectually stimulating activities postpone age-related cognitive decline. A previous systematic review concluded that a high level of mental work demands and job control protected against cognitive decline. However, it did not distinguish between outcomes that were measured as cognitive function at one point in time or as cognitive decline. Our study aimed to systematically review which psychosocial working conditions were prospectively associated with high levels of cognitive function and/or changes in cognitive function over time. Articles were identified by a systematic literature search (MEDLINE, Web of Science (WOS), PsycNET, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)). We included only studies with longitudinal designs examining the impact of psychosocial work conditions on outcomes defined as cognitive function or changes in cognitive function. Two independent reviewers compared title-abstract screenings, full-text screenings and quality assessment ratings. Eleven studies were included in the final synthesis and showed that high levels of mental work demands, occupational complexity or job control at one point in time were prospectively associated with higher levels of cognitive function in midlife or late life. However, the evidence to clarify whether these psychosocial factors also affected cognitive decline was insufficient, conflicting or weak. It remains speculative whether job control, job demands or occupational complexity can protect against cognitive decline. Future studies using methodological advancements can reveal whether workers gain more cognitive reserve in midlife and late life than the available evidence currently suggests. The public health implications of a previous review should thereby be redefined accordingly.
Older Workers with Physically Demanding Jobs and their Cognitive Functioning
Ageing International
Although employment can provide older people with both financial and nonfinancial rewards, it is questionable whether those benefits extend to all older workers, particularly those with physically demanding jobs. This study aimed to examine whether the perceived level of physical demands placed on older workers 55 or older is significantly associated with their cognitive function. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) 2010 wave, we analyzed two domains of cognition: verbal episodic memory and reasoning. After controlling for demographics and risk factors for age-related cognitive deterioration, the perceived level of physical demands placed on older workers was still significantly and negatively linked with both memory and reasoning domains of cognition. Older workers with more physically demanding jobs tended to have poorer cognitive function. Further longitudinal studies are needed to confirm this relationship.
Job-worker mismatch and cognitive decline
Oxford Economic Papers, 2007
We have used longitudinal test data on various aspects of people's cognitive abilities to analyze whether overeducated workers are more vulnerable to a decline in their cognitive abilities, and undereducated workers are less vulnerable. We found that a job-worker mismatch induces a cognitive decline with respect to immediate and delayed recall abilities, cognitive flexibility and verbal fluency. Our findings indicate that, to some extent, it is the adjustment of the ability level of the overeducated and undereducated workers that adjusts initial job-worker mismatch. This adds to the relevance of preventing overeducation, and shows that being employed in a challenging job contributes to workers' cognitive resilience. JEL Classification: J24, I19, I29
Safety and Health at Work, 2020
Background: The study aimed to determine the association of individual cognitive ability in late midlife with labor market participation among older workers. Methods: This prospective cohort study estimates the risk of long-term sickness absence, disability pension, early retirement, and unemployment from scores on the Intelligenz-Struktur-Test 2000R by combining data from 5076 workers from the Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank with a register on social transfer payments. Analyses were stepwise adjusted for age, gender, physical and psychosocial work environment, health behaviors, occupational social class, education, and chronic diseases. Results: In the fully adjusted model, low cognitive ability (1 standard deviation below the mean for each gender) and high cognitive ability (1 standard deviation above the mean for each gender) were not associated with risk of any of the four labor market outcomes. Conclusion: Individual cognitive ability in late midlife was not associated with risk of long-term sickness absence, disability pension, early retirement, and unemployment in the fully adjusted model. Thus, no direct effect of individual cognitive ability in late midlife was observed on the risk of permanently or temporarily leaving the labor market.