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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

#351

Post by rescbr »

lukasbm wrote: post #323
wiseowise wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know many people with a lot of free time. In the vast majority of cases, people spend their free time in almost exactly the same way they spent their free time when they had less of it. Binging on social media, television, or games? Now they just do more of it for longer. The people that volunteer more were already doing it, and they are in the small minority. You lock people for decades in the madhouse which lea…

More than 10% of 18-25 year olds are considered NEETs. They haven't experienced anything but sitting at school for 25 hours a week with zero responsibilities. Yet none of them do anything useful with their free time. Funnily, this affects both poor and rich kids equally

> sitting at school for 25 hours a week

School is closer to a prison than to a place where one can be creative and build things.

There is historical context why schools are designed and operated in this way: it creates factory workers that follow instructions, not critical thinkers.

Of course, there are schools that use more humane pedagogical methods, but they are the exception.

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

#352

Post by rsynnott »

benchwright wrote: post #231
dkga wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is also more than that. In car-centric places like Brazil or the US, older people essentially need to drive or be driven around to have a social life. In pedestrian friendly cities like many in Europe, it is very common to see older people walking to meet their friends/relatives. I saw it all the time in Switzerland. Even those with severely limited mobility would prefer to actively walk or take the tram/b…

Can agree with this (to a certain extent). Spending time in both America and Ireland, there's a definite difference in the extent to which "I can only get there by car versus public transit/other types of transport" is incorporated into the culture. By far, more urban/suburban/rural density with appropriate public transportation support leads to more freedom to walk, bike, etc. Geographically, however, there are clea…

Ireland actually arguably has a bit of a crisis coming up there; over the last 40 years or so one-off housing (ie rural housing completely in the middle of nowhere, rather than in villages) became more and more common, until the planners clamped down on it. The people living in those houses, which are completely impossible to serve with public transport and utterly dependent on cars, are going to age, and sooner or later it is going to become a serious problem, because once they're unable to drive they'll be trapped in their homes.

It's not a big proportion of housing on a national scale, but still enough that people living in completely isolated houses in more common in Ireland than in most places, and enough that it could become a serious wellbeing problem as the residents age.

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

#353

Post by Aurornis »

philipallstar wrote: post #279
Aurornis wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No time for baking treats > No time for being a governor at the local school The way the internet talks about employment is so foreign compared to real life. Does anyone really believe that having a job precludes baking treats? Or volunteering at a school? My kids' school and all of my friends' kids' schools have parent-run boards and other organizations where most of the participants also have jobs. Outside of the…

> Does anyone really believe that having a job precludes baking treats? I don't mean occasionally. I mean as normal practice - no plastic-wrapped snacks at all other than an occasional chocolate. > Like I'm reading about a different world where everyone is working 100 hours per week It depends where you live. If you're in a country with low population growth then the housing cost increase from 2-earner families isn't…

> I don't mean occasionally. I mean as normal practice - no plastic-wrapped snacks at all other than an occasional chocolate.

You can raise and feed kids without a job without feeding them plastic-wrapped snacks all day.

I bake and meal prep for my kids. They hang out in and around the kitchen and we play and talk.

I think there’s some catastrophizing going on with these beliefs, combined with seeing life through exaggerated social media posts. It’s so foreign to read compared to how well adjusted people operate in real life.

> And it also depends when you live. Gen Z are saying they can't get started, and don't expect to buy a house until well into their 30s. Current parents could buy in their late 20s

This is a major clue that you’re viewing life through histrionic social media posts.

Did you know Gen Z home ownership is higher than the previous generation at the same age?

If you thought that Gen Z would never buy homes like the previous generation, you are actually 180 degrees opposite of the truth.

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

#354

Post by rsynnott »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #225
bluefirebrand wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not when basics like rent, food, and healthcare eat up the majority of that 45k There's only so much you can reduce your lifestyle before you're literally just living to work anyways

The US has one of the highest median incomes adjusted for cost of living in the world: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income (You're welcome to complain. I'm just clarifying that insofar as this is a problem, it is very much not exclusive to the United States.)

One caution there; if you read the small print, they're using PPP figures. Which is definitely better than using nominal figures, but doesn't account for anything. In particular, it doesn't account for transfers, either direct (social welfare payments) or indirect (subsidised healthcare, housing, childcare etc etc).

Not to say it's a useless figure, but it can mislead (especially for lower income people, where healthcare costs and childcare costs, say, might be literally 0 in some countries, and a huge part of their income in others).

And obviously for people trying to do the FIRE thing in particular, healthcare costs are likely to be a very big deal; for those in countries like the US where most people get healthcare through their job, that's an additional consideration that people in countries where it's done by income-based subsidised insurance, or free-at-point-of-use systems, don't have.

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

#355

Post by devonkim »

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #320
WalterBright wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its all about class struggle That's the foundation of Marxist theory. In America, however, anyone can become wealthy.

Marxims is such a lazy evaluation system. Discarding culture altogether, refusing analysis of religion, its basically a Proof Of Non work, when it comes to sociology and analysis

I think it’s unfair to say that it’s “lazy.” Neo Marxists understand the way those factors affect impact economics but because they’re very difficult to quantify in a heavily quantitative focused academic environment you’ll see less focus upon it, even when analyzing standard fare free market capitalism. I consider it a double standard to put burdens of analysis more upon one ideology than another. Sociology and religion are already highly qualitative disciplines by nature of the limits of science and our known physical reality (eg. we can’t time travel let alone reliably) and the kind of advantages systems like feudalism, monarchism, mercantilism, etc. work with authoritarian centralized systems is consistent across many societies including why some cultures tend toward syncretism and why others reject certain tenets and customs. The Nordics weren’t Christian, after all, and they absorbed it much more than American indigenous while Black Americans have very different relationships to Christianity than African blacks such as in Somalia and Ethiopia - this isn’t the wheelhouse of economists typically in academics but various humanities departments unrelated to business. Those influences and trends usually get labeled under the standard generic realities of imperialism given so much orchestrated power influences societies en masse while most bottom up movements against these structures tend to come from humanities focused areas away from economic interests like the arts, but this is why the Soviet Union and even China suppressed these freedoms because of the tendency to cause discord and dissent in a precarious society. As such, most leftist literature, especially outside academia (already an institution that must exist within the confines of a funding society), sounds predominantly like they’re criticizing basically every dominant human social construct, which is where the ideological position is cornered. This isn’t to say that I agree with this kind of discourse either because it doesn’t convince people beholden to these dominant constructs.

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

#356

Post by boogieknite »

MisterTea wrote: post #65
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…

Every man I know that lived well into their 80's touching or breaking 90 were all active in some way. Once they stopped, they died shortly after. Though to be honest, they didn't stop by choice, usually from an injury or medical condition.

we just took the keys from grandpa at 93. way way wayyyyy later than we should have. cant help but wonder how many years men breaking 90 and staying active have cost others in car accidents

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

#357

Post by rsynnott »

ericmay wrote: post #29
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…

As a general comment, I'd like to say that getting out of the house is a hell of a lot easier when you don't have to drive everywhere to participate in daily life. So and so family member sits at home and watches TV all day is a phenomenon caused primarily by our car-centric culture which, for the elderly, is a barrier to staying healthy both mentally and physically.

One thing we do in Ireland is that all public transport is free for people aged over 65. While I don't think this was the original _intent_, it definitely seems to encourage people to get out of the house more.

(In particular, some people seem to go places just to get the value out of the free pass, which probably keeps them more active than they would otherwise be.)

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

#358

Post by rsynnott »

criddell wrote: post #307
selimthegrim wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Orleans

Probably not a great place to move to right now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48015218

I mean if you're elderly it's probably fine; it's if you plan to still be living there in a few decades that you might want to start worrying.

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

#359

Post by qkeast »

chownie wrote: post #304
WJW wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's tons of people over here taking 3 or 4 weeks contiguous, especially if they have children. That is in addition to other vacations around christmas etc. It's definitely not 5 separate weeks. I don't think there's a lot of things that one could do in 5 weeks, but where 4 weeks would be too short.

Tons? Hyperbole? Are they teachers or something? That amount of leave in one go is basically unheard of, with the exception of maternity leave I don't know anyone who's been on leave for more than 3 weeks as a single block. This is also taking from that same 5 week leave bucket people have available per annum, if they're taking 4 weeks then they have 5 days to last the remainder of the year. Not that crazy, but I hav…

All the time in Germany.

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

#360

Post by criddell »

rsynnott wrote: post #358
criddell wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not a great place to move to right now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48015218

I mean if you're elderly it's probably fine; it's if you plan to still be living there in a few decades that you might want to start worrying.

If you're elderly and are able to evacuate for a hurricane every few years, sure.
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