According to a new study, remaining in the labor force until the age of 67 protects against cognitive decline like that seen with Alzheimer’s disease.
- By taking into account various factors such as social origins, gender, social and economic status or even level of education and occupation, the researchers found that people who remained professionally active longer had fewer cognitive disorders.
- According to their modeling work, raising the retirement age to 67 would slow the cognitive decline of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
- However, it is possible to maintain cognitive faculties other than by working, for example by performing voluntary activities that keep the brain “active”.
Flagship point of the pension reform desired by the government, the decline in the legal retirement age is not unanimous among workers. While a recent report by the Pensions Orientation Council suggests that it would be necessary to raise this age to 64 in To allow a return to balance in the pension system, a new study published in the journal SSM Population Health estimates that postponing the retirement age could be beneficial to cognitive health.
According to its authors, participating in the labor market until the age of 67 would slow down cognitive decline and protect against cognitive disorders, such as those caused by Alzheimer’s disease. This protective effect seems to be maintained regardless of gender and level of education or occupation.
A “fortuitous and unintended” consequence on cognitive maintenance
To reach this conclusion, the research team used data from the Health and Retirement Study on more than 20,000 Americans between the ages of 55 and 75 who participated in the labor market at some point between 1996 and 2014. They considered variable and time-invariant sociodemographic, behavioral and health factors, as well as risk factors for cognitive decline. First, the researchers performed moderation analyzes to determine whether the effect of delayed retirement on cognitive function differed by gender, education level and/or occupational level. Finally, they conducted mediation analyzes to test whether depressive symptoms or health function as mechanisms linking retirement and cognitive function.
The results show that postponing the retirement age can have a “fortuitous and unintended” consequence on cognitive maintenance. “In this study, we approach retirement and cognitive function on the premise that they both occur near the end of a long life course, explains Angelo Lorenti, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Germany and co-author of the study. It begins with a person’s social origins in terms of ethnicity, gender, and social and economic status in early life, continues with level of education and occupation and health behaviors, and extends to to closer factors such as partner status and mental and physical health. All of these types of factors accumulate and interact throughout life to affect both cognitive function and retirement age.”
For the authors of the study, this link between raising the age of retirement and maintaining cognitive abilities is probably explained by the very nature of the professional activity. By keeping the brain active, work tasks and conditions also contribute to cognitive function. But, they note, professional activity is not the only one to have a protective effect on cognitive functions. Other cognitively or socially appealing activities such as volunteering may also protect against cognitive decline.
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