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Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

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Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#111

Post by pavel_lishin »

tensor wrote: post #72
CydeWeys wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe that's just the human condition? Retirement is a pretty recent concept anyway. Back when people were hunter/gatherers or subsistence farmers, you didn't have the option of retiring. You either kept working or you starved, perished from the elements, etc.

That's not true. There were always different roles for older people. They didn't just keep doing the same job their whole lives.

And people who were injured to the point where they couldn't "work" anymore were still cared for by their community.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#112

Post by overfeed »

csallen wrote: post #87
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #35

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…

I think this is a problem in perspective/framing. Or phrasing, if you will. "Being economic entities in the workforce" could alternatively be phrased, "performing a skilled role or responsibility that's useful for your tribe." That sounds much less sinister. It's something humans have been doing for millions of years. It feels good, it engages our brains, it's helpful to others, and it's helpful to ourselves. And I c…

Multi-generation households - which also can keep older people active like you noted -are mostly gone. You can't do much for your tribe from a retirement home on a random Saturday afternoon every few months in summer, so work or hobbies are the remaining activity centers, but you now which of the 2 is lionized as a virtue in American culture. Some hobbies are unfortunately only discovered in retirement, so perhaps some criticism of the economic system as imperfect is due.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#113

Post by strifey »

WarmWash wrote: post #110
philipallstar wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the outcome of everyone working. There's no alternate, complementary system (mostly women) of interesting, society-strengthening activities. Everyone works because they have to, because otherwise they won't afford a house when competing against two-income households, so everyone's busy, so everything's a rush and far more activities that used to be done are now monetised. No time for baking treats; just buy s…

But it's all just work, all the ways down. What you are describing is working for someone else, but the alternative, working for yourself, is definitely not the dreamy image all the people working for someone else thinks it is. Working for yourself is work + risk, albeit you get to chose (read: try to correctly identify) the work. So no matter what, unless you want blob on the states dime, you are going to spend most…

They're not describing working for yourself? At least in terms of financial compensation. A job and some form of communal/familial uncompensated labor are extremely different in this context. Calling them both "work" in this context is muddying the waters.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#114

Post by cableshaft »

dempedempe wrote: post #8
cableshaft wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I work from home. Except for 1-2 short zoom calls a day or talking with my wife, who also works from home, I can go pretty much the whole week without talking to anyone. I try to make sure I go out with friends at least once on the weekends, though, to sort of make up for it. But I do wonder if that's going to be a bad thing for me later in my life. But I also play a lot of board games, including somewhat compli…

What card games do you play? Do you have any recommendations?

My main card game lately has been the Legendary system of games, in particular the Marvel version (although I did just order the James Bond version this morning too after playing the app version this past week). I like to play it with two players and alternate hands, but you can play it solo too.

Another one I like to play is Ashes, which has solo enemies you can play against. It's entry point nowadays is called Ashes Ascendancy.

And I play a lot of cooperative card games by the publisher Fantasy Flight Games, namely Marvel Champions, Lord of the Rings - The Card Game, and Arkham Horror - The Card Game. Lord of the Rings is starting to go out of print, and the older content for the other two is out of print, but the other two are still coming out with new content (and I have all the old stuff so I can still play them).

All of these have a ton of content with them, so I can play a bunch of games and not get bored of them. I've played each of them over 50 times, and some as many as 150 times, and yet there's still plenty I haven't played for each of them.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#115

Post by antisthenes »

qwerpy wrote: post #109
stouset wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to follow FIRE-related communities. There were a depressing number of people who would post something along the lines of “I just pulled the trigger! Now what am I supposed to do to fill the time?” Your take is spot on, and it’s incredibly sad the number of people we’ve created whose only source of meaning or joy in their life is their desk job. As someone who pulled the trigger about a year ago, I feel like th…

I don't understand why someone would FIRE and not already have spent years lining up all the things they will do. And the "won't you be so bored?" people. No, I'm not bored. You might be because you need someone else to tell you how to spend your hours. Between learning new hobbies, tackling my backlog of projects in my old hobbies, taking care of my health, and spending quality time with my family, I still have more…

The tragedy is that people who are most likely to successfully FIRE have spent so long being laser-focused on making money to FIRE, that they neglected their (hobbies, social circle, health - underline as needed), so they find themselves in such a predicament.

Personally, I'd love to FIRE. I have at least 5-10 years of personal projects in my head that I would do if I didn't have a 9-5 job. Unfortunately, graduating into a shitty 2009 market and not having nepotism connections means I am unlikely to ever FIRE outside of some expat poverty FIRE in a cheap country.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#116

Post by Vedor »

qwerpy wrote: post #109
stouset wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to follow FIRE-related communities. There were a depressing number of people who would post something along the lines of “I just pulled the trigger! Now what am I supposed to do to fill the time?” Your take is spot on, and it’s incredibly sad the number of people we’ve created whose only source of meaning or joy in their life is their desk job. As someone who pulled the trigger about a year ago, I feel like th…

I don't understand why someone would FIRE and not already have spent years lining up all the things they will do. And the "won't you be so bored?" people. No, I'm not bored. You might be because you need someone else to tell you how to spend your hours. Between learning new hobbies, tackling my backlog of projects in my old hobbies, taking care of my health, and spending quality time with my family, I still have more…

You are talking about retirement, yet I was working with people who couldn't stand the 2-week long annual leave (which is mandatory for every under contract of employment where I live) because they had nothing to do. 30, 40 years old people. It's terrifying.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#117

Post by antisthenes »

nate wrote: post #14

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…

> But in his 80s he was working at Menards as a greeter and stocker.

> 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.

It's a nice "just so" story, but when you're in your 80s, you are already in multiple stages of decline across the board. One small injury can cause a cascading failure of systems.

> The poor health came after being forced to quit.

I don't know how you can so authoritatively state this about a man in his 80s. (e.g. - past the average life expectancy). 80 is just really really old. How fast the decline gets you at that point is really mostly a genetic lottery.

But if the anecdote helps you be more active personally - more power to you.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#118

Post by weirdmantis69 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #111
tensor wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. There were always different roles for older people. They didn't just keep doing the same job their whole lives.

And people who were injured to the point where they couldn't "work" anymore were still cared for by their community.

I mean, that just isn't true. There are amazon tribes today where they just send them down the river to die... your ideas are a disney-fied version of a false past that never existed.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#119

Post by lovecg »

stouset wrote: post #105
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #35

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…

I used to follow FIRE-related communities. There were a depressing number of people who would post something along the lines of “I just pulled the trigger! Now what am I supposed to do to fill the time?” Your take is spot on, and it’s incredibly sad the number of people we’ve created whose only source of meaning or joy in their life is their desk job. As someone who pulled the trigger about a year ago, I feel like th…

I’ve noticed some people with seemingly fulfilling hobbies stop doing them after quitting their job as well. It’s entirely possible all those hobbies are valuable precisely as something powerful to latch onto and disconnect from the day job, and seem pointless the day after quitting. Seems like you had a strong sense of identity outside of your job already before quitting. Building that could be a lot of hard work for other people (and it sometimes comes as a surprise that it even needs to be built).

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#120

Post by bobthepanda »

alecco wrote: post #67
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #35

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…

My grandparents just bumped their volunteering from weekends to weekdays. Then my Boomer parents switched to leisure activities and travel (they stopped volunteering when they retired). I prefer my grandparent's retirement, but now that NGOs got professionalized and became extremely political that is a no-go for me. I didn't like to be bossed around by a 30yo narcissist driven by maxing out his EOY presentation (to k…

My fantasy is maybe to start a one person cafe operation and manage overheads.

Unfortunately most retail space in the US is way too oversized to make that kind of operation work.

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