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Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

nber.org

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

#91

Post by tardedmeme »

whatever120 wrote: post #79
tensor wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hit the nail squarely on the head. In days past when people retired they'd still help raise kids or look after households. When we moved past requiring that sort of thing, we left the elderly without engagement. I'm not sure what the solution is, but perhaps as a society we could be more intentional about creating roles where the elderly can still help and feel useful, but also have flexibility and a more relaxed…

They shouldn’t just feel useful, they need roles that actually are useful. They’re not dumb.

There are useful roles that could either be done by a human or a machine and the machine is usually more efficient.

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

#92

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

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…

Hyperbolic. Unless she has a second job she surely has other activities to occupy her 50-80 non working, non sleeping hours. She's making the much weaker statement that dropping from e.g. 40 hours of economically productive and legible work to zero would leave her worse off, and that's much more understandable.

Most of the people who get a lot out of retirement are still doing economically productive work, it's just illegible to the point they don't feel it's worth bothering to make a buck off it. Any serious hobby is basically a second job you don't get paid for, in other words.

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

#93

Post by dividefuel »

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.

I do think that once an elderly person loses the ability to drive, it's often a big tipping point towards their decline. I would suspect that losing the ability to drive usually (but not necessarily) comes before losing the ability to navigate public transit.

But I don't immediately believe the link that 'car culture' -> 'earlier cognitive decline'. Car culture, for example, is usually associated with living on larger plots of land, which comes with its own set of tasks and chores that can keep someone older occupied. A smaller apartment requires much less ongoing work.

I think a lot depends on the individual and how they best stay active. More dense living probably provides easier opportunities to do things, whereas less dense living sort of forces you to perform ongoing tasks.

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

#94

Post by RankingMember »

the_gastropod wrote: post #74
_blk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully but strongly disagree. I'll argue you don't have to be a victim and can choose where you live if you plan ahead a little. There's plenty of places where a car is not necessary and even if people think a car's necessary I'm often the only one on a bicycle in many places.. It's doable if you're willing to put in the effort.

As far as I’m aware, every US city where it’s at all common (let’s say 10%+ of households) to live without a car, it’s extremely expensive to live. Are there gems that I’m unaware of?

Philly

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

#95

Post by tensor »

whatever120 wrote: post #79
tensor wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hit the nail squarely on the head. In days past when people retired they'd still help raise kids or look after households. When we moved past requiring that sort of thing, we left the elderly without engagement. I'm not sure what the solution is, but perhaps as a society we could be more intentional about creating roles where the elderly can still help and feel useful, but also have flexibility and a more relaxed…

They shouldn’t just feel useful, they need roles that actually are useful. They’re not dumb.

Of course, though I still think remembering that people need to feel useful is important. E.g. you don't want to force someone into a job that may be useful but the person is feeling "why am I doing this, it's not needed." The goal is also not to fill time or a money quota. It's to do something helpful such that the person actually feels helpful.

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

#97

Post by verteu »

gste wrote: post #76

Is there any evidence in this paper or elsewhere that this is causation rather than correlation? For example, it seems logical to me that people with worse health and failing mental faculties will already be feeling more motivation to retire earlier, as opposed to very healthy people who will keep on working forever. That would be pure correlation

Yes - very roughly, they find that regions with lots of layoffs show an increase in subsequent cognitive decline:

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35117/w351...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_variable

Not perfect, but less vulnerable to the correlation issue you mentioned.

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

#98

Post by ElevenLathe »

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…

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.

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

#99

Post by pixelready »

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…

Sadly, polarization pushes people towards either wholesale “burn it down” anti-capitalism or full throated corporate bootlicking and I don’t think either tact is particularly useful. There’s a more subtle critique about our indoctrination in the west towards concepts like the “efficiency of the free market” demanding that we overlook rampant alienation among the working population that is more what a lot of people are vibing on, but it’s being expressed as diet anarchism because that feels more poignant online.

I think most folks do, in fact, want to “perform a skilled role or responsibility that's useful for your tribe”, but find themselves railroaded into bullshit office jobs full of performative nonsense, soul crushing frontline service work, or body destroying blue collar work with no safety net, all of which are recipes for burnout later in life. Compare Keynes’ “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” [1] to what we ended up with and you’ll find the root of the discontent is perhaps warranted.

[1] http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

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

#100

Post by georgeecollins »

glouwbug wrote: post #80
MisterTea wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m going to say there’s some mixup of causation and correlation here

Right, or possibly a third factor that people who work until they are older and people that have less cognitive decline older have in common. Like perhaps the kinds of jobs you can keep doing / or want to keep doing when you are older involve higher levels of education or more developed social networks that also correlate with longevity.
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