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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

#141

Post by entropicdrifter »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #132
ElevenLathe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've built a society where our only consistent interaction with community (for many people) is via the labor market. Severing all social connections will make a person deteriorate at any age. This is why solitary confinement is a cruel punishment.

> We've built a society where our only consistent interaction with community (for many people) is via the labor market Modern society arguably has more opportunity for play–and evidence of adults playing–than ancient socities. We also have a larger fraction of labor that one can genuinely like doing, versus being forced to do.

On the other hand, ancient societies had more in-person community and common free third-spaces for people to congregate, socialize, and otherwise involve themselves with their communities

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

#142

Post by entropicdrifter »

andix wrote: post #133
AlecSchueler wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Older and younger people often just don't compromise enough from an intrinsic motivation to make it work Could the market itself be encouraging demographic segregation. If we measure and focus on economic growth above all else then the workplace becomes the place more important than all others.

My claim is, that the market is encouraging segregation less than society. Jobs force people to work together. If nobody forces them, they often just don't work together, and stay in their bubble.

It's kind of a six-of-one half-a-dozen-of-the-other situation IMO. Modern society does tend to have extreme social bubbles, but those are also a product of market forces, which in turn were influenced by previous states of society, etc etc back to the beginning of time.

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

#143

Post by hallole »

jltsiren wrote: post #137
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…

It's an outcome of the expectation that people earn their living. People work less today than they used to, but a larger fraction of that work is paid. And it's a consequence of making divorce legal and socially acceptable. Traditional marriage was primarily an economic contract. The wife assumed the responsibility for running the household, and the husband had a lifetime obligation to support her. But if you stay aw…

> "Traditional marriage was primarily an economic contract."

I don't buy this. You can, for the purposes of your argument, reduce marriage to being something like an economic contract, that's fine; but, in reality, that's not what marriage is/has been primarily about.

Also, solving the burden of work for one sex isn't a solution. Granted, it's better than nothing.

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

#144

Post by djmips »

calferreira wrote: post #122
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 actually have the same fear. I love computers and I don't know what I'll do once I retire. Problem solving on computers is like oxygen to me.

There's a big ocean of problem solving on computers that doesn't require a day job! I find it very fun. I mean I started on computers for fun when I was young and it turned into a job so being retired means I can just go back to working on the stuff I like in particular.

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

#145

Post by mannanj »

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…

For most, work in America seems inherently undignified.

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

#146

Post by WarmWash »

wholinator2 wrote: post #125
WarmWash wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I emphatically disagree. Baking treats is working for yourself? Taking care of the neighbors kids in turns is working for yourself? Are you saying that spending time having hobbies and participating in the local community is "work" and thus must also be as soul crushing as a 9-5 pushing pointless word documents? None of this is "working for yourself", it's called having a life with friends and hobbies.

I'm saying the community you envision in your head doesn't exist without the "crushing" 9-5. Every society ever has been people doing "crushing" work (albeit with some brief pockets of living comfortably on societal stockpile). Our comforts are the fruits of others "crushing" 9-5.

And sure, you can find a group of like minded people and go fully off grid, and live that life of "leisure". But your idea of leisure better be farming all day, being hungry with bland food all winter, and a gash on your toe being life threatening.

Usually when people conceptualize stuff like this, they do it on a personal level without consideration for what society on a whole would look like if everyone did it. If you keep digging, you find that 99% of people actually just want benefits of others work without working themselves. What a revelation!

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

#147

Post by hallole »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #127
WarmWash wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think what we've shed are more things like chairing a committee for the VFW, selling snacks at little league games, or being active in a lowers voice, looks over shoulder union. These are things that would traditionally take up the social slack left by not punching a clock every day, and we've eliminated them systematically to make room for more marketized activities. Today's retirees are "richer" than their parent…

In what way have we "eliminated them systematically"? Maybe I haven't paid close enough attention, but it feels like those activities have (unfortunately) disappeared largely naturally.

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

#148

Post by moneycantbuy »

RankingMember wrote: post #96
josefritzishere wrote: post #18

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

Propaganda to what end, the global cabal to...encourage people to stay busy in retirement?

no to work for someone else forever

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

#149

Post by SupremumLimit »

andix wrote: post #126
ElevenLathe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've built a society where our only consistent interaction with community (for many people) is via the labor market. Severing all social connections will make a person deteriorate at any age. This is why solitary confinement is a cruel punishment.

In my experience its really hard to find something that connects people of different age groups in a meaningful way, that doesn't involve a workplace-like setting. Older and younger people often just don't compromise enough from an intrinsic motivation to make it work. If they are somehow forced to work together, and have to make compromises, it suddenly works much better. They also benefit and enjoy it. It doesn't h…

Really? This just proves the point of the grandparent comment. I can think of at least three types of activities off the top of my head: sports (granted, not all of them, but definitely true for my sport - squash), music (playing an instrument in a group setting), and volunteering. I also know people who are in a bridge club with people twice their age.

There are still social activities connecting people of different age groups although I agree with the above comment that structurally the society we have has been eroding non-labour market interactions.

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

#150

Post by JumpCrisscross »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #141
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've built a society where our only consistent interaction with community (for many people) is via the labor market Modern society arguably has more opportunity for play–and evidence of adults playing–than ancient socities. We also have a larger fraction of labor that one can genuinely like doing, versus being forced to do.

On the other hand, ancient societies had more in-person community and common free third-spaces for people to congregate, socialize, and otherwise involve themselves with their communities

> ancient societies had more in-person community and common free third-spaces

For the elites. Most people in the population were doing back-breaking labor.

I'm not saying there wasn't leisure. But when most of a society's labor goes into agriculture, most of the leisure time is going to be spent on the farm with fellow farmhands. (The exception being winter months.)

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