Retirement and Cognitive Development: Are the Retired Really Inactive?

Andries de Grip, Arnaud Dupuy (), Jelle Jolles and Martin Van Boxtel
Additional contact information
Jelle Jolles: Faculty of Psychology and Education, Free University of Amsterdam
Martin Van Boxtel: Department of Neuropsychology, Maastricht University

No 2012/14, Working Papers from Maastricht School of Management

Abstract: This paper uses longitudinal test data to analyze the relation be- tween retirement and cognitive development. Controlling for individ- ual xed e¤ects and lagged cognition, we nd that retirees face greater declines in information processing speed than those who remain em- ployed. However, remarkably, their cognitive exibility declines less, an e¤ect that appears to be persistent 6 years after retirement. Both e¤ects of retirement on cognitive development are comparable to the e¤ect of a ve to six-year age di¤erence. We show that the e¤ects of retirement on cognitive decline cannot be explained by (1) a re- lief e¤ect after being employed in low-skilled jobs, (2) mood swings or (3) changes in lifestyle. Controlling for changes in blood pressure, which are negatively related to cognitive exibility, we still nd lower declines in cognitive exibility for retirees. Since the decline in in- formation processing speed after retirement holds particularly for the low educated, activating these persons after retirement could lower the social costs of an aging society.

Keywords: Cognitive decline; labor market activity; retirement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2012-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-lab and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://web2.msm.nl/RePEc/msm/wpaper/MSM-WP2012-14.pdf First version, 2012 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Retirement and Cognitive Development: Are the Retired Really Inactive? (2013)
Working Paper: Retirement and cognitive development: are the retired really inactive? (2012)
Working Paper: Retirement and cognitive development: are the retired really inactive? (2012)
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