A potential risk of early retirement: 6 study notes
Leaving the workforce before retirement age could speed up cognitive decline, while working into older ages may help delay it, according to a recent study.
Six things to know:
1. Working near retirement age appears to lower the risk of cognitive decline, a precursor to dementia, based on correlational evidence cited in the study. The paper was published online by the National Bureau of Economic Research in April by three University of California, Irvine researchers: Noah Arman Kouchekinia, David Neumark, PhD, and Tim Bruckner, PhD. It comes as life expectancy continues to climb and a growing share of the population faces disability tied to cognitive decline and dementia.
2. The researchers wanted to know whether leaving work earlier — not just at traditional retirement age — speeds cognitive decline. Signs of decline can show up as early as age 40, and more than 30% of men ages 51-64 are not working. The team analyzed 12 waves of Health and Retirement Study data from 1996 to 2018, focusing on adults ages 51-64.
3. To determine cause and effect, the researchers tracked how shifts in local job markets — driven by national industry trends rather than individual circumstances — affected cognitive scores over time. The approach helped rule out the possibility that declining cognition was itself pushing people out of work. They measured cognitive function using the Langa-Weir global cognitive score, which tests word recall, mental processing and working memory.
4. The clearest effect showed up in men ages 51-64. A 10 percentage-point drop in the local employment rate corresponded with a 0.11 standard deviation decline in cognitive scores for this group. The researchers did not find the same effect for women ages 51-64 or for adults ages 65-75. They suggested women in this age range tend to work in fields less exposed to local economic shocks, such as teaching, healthcare and the public sector.
5. The authors said the results could support policies aimed at keeping more people working before retirement age, such as encouraging employment among Social Security Disability Insurance recipients or expanding hiring incentives. Beyond cognitive benefits, they wrote, longer working lives could reduce SSDI reliance, delay Social Security claiming and boost retirement savings.
6. The researchers noted limits to their work, including that the data cannot identify which specific aspects of work or job loss drive the cognitive effect. They added that the relationship likely varies depending on the type of work and the characteristics of the people studied.
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