Cognitive Aging and Ability to Work

Working longer is an effective way to boost individuals’ retirement security. Thus, understanding who can work longer and who may struggle is a key issue for researchers and policymakers. Some studies find that age-related declines in physical abilities can limit those in physically demanding jobs from working into their late 60s. But the effects of changes in cognitive abilities on work have received less attention. At first glance, it appears that a decline in “fluid” intelligence – the capacity to process new information – and an apparent relationship between fluid intelligence and job achievement could pose a barrier to working longer. However, “crystallized” intelligence – accumulated knowledge – increases with age, and cognitive reserves can offer spare capacity against declining fluid intelligence. As a result, studies comparing the productivity of young and old workers find that age is a crude and unreliable predictor of performance. This brief – the second in a series of three – reviews the research literature to assess how cognitive aging affects the ability to work during ages 50-70. The first brief provided a primer on cognitive aging and the third brief will examine how it affects retirees’ ability to manage their money from ages 70-90. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section documents that age is not generally related to productivity across a variety of occupations. The second section explains why declining fluid intelligence tends not to impede work ability. The third section looks at the minority of workers who may struggle to remain productive and why. The final section concludes that experience helps many workers in skilled jobs stay productive and workers in less skilled jobs might have more fluid intelligence than their job requires. However, two groups are vulnerable to age-related decline: those in jobs where accumulated knowledge cannot offset demand for fluid intelligence and those who experience cognitive impairment.