I left work at 62 and there is no cognitive decline at all. Keeping up with all this research keeps my brain sharp.
Can leaving the workforce early lead to cognitive decline? Here's what experts say
Early retirement sounds pretty great. It's hard to picture a downside of ditching the daily grind for a lifetime of more personally fulfilling pursuits.
But leaving employment before traditional retirement age - especially because of layoffs or weak labor markets - could have negative impacts on cognitive abilities, according to a new working paper from researchers at UC Irvine published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
David Neumark, a professor of economics at UC Irvine who co-authored the study, said existing research had demonstrated a correlation between leaving the workforce before age 65 and a faster pace of cognitive decline. He and his co-authors, population health scholar Tim Bruckner and graduate student Noah Arman Kouchekinia, wanted to look more closely at causation: Does leaving the workforce lead to diminishing cognitive ability, or does a decline in mental capabilities make a person more likely to leave their job?
The results, Neumark said, suggest the former: People who left employment early - particularly men aged 51 to 64 - showed more evidence of cognitive decline than people who remained employed over that same period.
The study looked at broad population impacts, not individual ones. And it didn't differentiate between people who intentionally retired early and people who were forced out by labor market difficulties, though Neumark said most fell into that latter category.
The UC Irvine researchers looked at data for 40,000 adults who participated in University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study between 1996 and 2018. Respondents in that study, which is ongoing, are scored on their cognitive ability over time, among other things.
The researchers divided the country into local labor markets and then identified so-called "demand shocks" to industries in those markets and how they correlated with changes in cognitive scores for the people who lived there.
Looking at it that way, he said, helped the researchers distinguish whether unemployment contributed to cognitive decline, rather than the reverse - that people left the workforce prematurely because their cognitive abilities had declined.
For instance, Neumark said, in labor markets that relied on auto manufacturing, people left the workforce because of downturns in that industry, not because they were no longer intellectually capable of working. "When we look at those labor market shocks, the labor market declined because it had auto plants," he said. "It's not having less jobs afterward because people there experienced cognitive decline."
The cognitive ability scores of those who left their jobs did not typically decline below the "normal" range, the paper reported; they were just a few points lower compared to people the same age who were still employed. Neumark said the decline observed in nonworking people in their 50s was comparable to two years of normal age-related cognitive decline among people in their 60s and 70s, which is not drastic but significant enough to show up in testing data.
The impacts were also more pronounced in men than in women. Neumark said that is likely because women tend to work in jobs that are less subject to local demand shocks, like teaching and nursing, so they're less likely to become suddenly unemployed en masse.
It's also important to note, he said, that this is a population-level finding, not an individual one. If you are 51 and facing an extended period of unemployment, or if you carefully save and invest in order to facilitate leaving the workforce earlier, you are not automatically doomed to early dementia.
"It's more of an average effect. And I wouldn't want to say it applies to everyone," he said. "But I think if someone were to say, ‘What's the takeaway for me? ' I'd say try to replace what you're doing post-work with some of the things you did at work that you think keep you sharp."
Mass unemployment can have cascading cost consequences: At a population level, it is costly to the government to have people out of work for a long period of time, costly to have people claiming Social Security earlier than they'd planned because they can't find work, and costly when people go from mild cognitive decline to dementia. Neumark said the implications of the paper indicate it is likely in the government's interest to fund programs like local hiring subsidies and programs to boost employment opportunities for older Americans.
"Economists used to say, if we see a regional employment decline, ‘We shouldn't do anything because it's better if people move to where the jobs are,'" he said. People used to do that - but research shows they don't anymore. A lot of that is due to housing costs, particularly if you're coming from historically less expensive areas like the Southeast, he said.
"Some places were always more expensive than the Southeast, but now they're a lot more expensive," Neumark said. "You're not going to move to San Francisco to make 10% higher wages, right? That's not going to work. Whereas in the 1970s, you might have, because it might only have cost 10% more to move to San Francisco."
Losing a job vs. choosing retirement
Susann Rohwedder, a senior economist for RAND, studies cognitive and economic well-being in older populations. She said people who choose to retire early and people who are pushed out of the workforce due to forces outside their control are not facing the same circumstances that likely lead to cognitive decline.
Someone in their 50s who is laid off during a broader economic downturn is going to face higher levels of distress and depression, both of which are linked to accelerated declines in cognitive functioning, she said. That's a very different picture from someone who has carefully saved and invested with the goal of leaving the grind behind in their 50s.
Still, she said, anyone who leaves the workforce, for any reason, is more likely to experience some level of accelerated cognitive decline. Work functions as a "precommitment device," Rohwedder said, something that locks you into a course of action, so you're pressured to be dependable and responsible and make deadlines. And that appears to be beneficial to brain health.
It's challenging to replace that in retirement, even an active one, she said, because you aren't necessarily committed to getting things done the same way. It's easier to cancel pickleball than a quarterly shareholder meeting. Then again, for many people, getting the opportunity to rest your brain a bit is a selling point for retirement, not a downside.
How to protect your brain when you leave work
The paper did not delve into interventions to prevent cognitive decline. But people who study the subject say there are good habits associated with maintaining your brain health in your later working years and beyond.
VJ Periyakoil, a professor of medicine and the director of the Center for Longevity and Healthy Aging at Stanford Medical School, said the reason work keeps you mentally sharp is because it gives you purpose and offers structure, mental challenges and social interactions.
"It is like sending the brain to the gym for eight hours a day," she said in an email.
The good news is that the workplace isn't the only "brain gym" that exists. Staying active - physically, mentally, and socially - in retirement or during an extended time out of the paid workforce can offer those same protective benefits.
She highlighted volunteering as a great option: You stay physically active, you have a routine, you meet people, and you gain a sense of purpose. Learning a new language or instrument are also activities that challenge our brain with novelty, which keeps you sharp at any age.
"Round it out with a Mediterranean-style diet, good sleep, and exercise," she said. "This will keep us golden in our golden years."
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