IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/asb/wpaper/201207.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Social Activities on Cognitive Ageing: Evidence From Eleven European Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Loretti Dobrescu

    (School of Economics and ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales)

  • Dimitris Christelis

    (CSEF, Dept. of Economics, University of Naples Federico II)

Abstract

Using micro data from eleven European countries, we investigate the impact of being socially active on cognition in older age. Cognitive abilities are measured through scores on numeracy, fluency and recall tests. We address the endogeneity of social activities through panel data and instrumental variable methods. We find that social activities have an important positive effect on cognition, with the results varying by gender. Fluency is positively affected only in females, while numeracy only in males. Finally, recall is affected in both sexes. We also show that social activities, through their effect on cognition, influence positively households’ economic welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Loretti Dobrescu & Dimitris Christelis, 2012. "The Impact of Social Activities on Cognitive Ageing: Evidence From Eleven European Countries," Working Papers 201207, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales.
    • Handle: RePEc:asb:wpaper:201207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cepar.edu.au/media/93532/07_the_impact_of_social_activities_on_cognitive_ageing_-_updated_copy_for_website.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. María-Victoria Zunzunegui & Beatriz E. Alvarado & Teodoro Del Ser & Angel Otero, 2003. "Social Networks, Social Integration, and Social Engagement Determine Cognitive Decline in Community-Dwelling Spanish Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(2), pages 93-100.
    2. William Greene, 2004. "The behaviour of the maximum likelihood estimator of limited dependent variable models in the presence of fixed effects," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 7(1), pages 98-119, June.
    3. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2005. "Microeconometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521848053, September.
    4. Agar Brugiavini & Tullio Jappelli & Guglielmo Weber, 2002. "The Survey on Health, Aging and Wealth," CSEF Working Papers 86, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    5. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder & Robert Willis, 2008. "Preparation for Retirement, Financial Literacy and Cognitive Resources," Working Papers wp190, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    6. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    7. Hausman, Jerry & Hall, Bronwyn H & Griliches, Zvi, 1984. "Econometric Models for Count Data with an Application to the Patents-R&D Relationship," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 909-938, July.
    8. Ertel, K.A. & Glymour, M.M. & Berkman, L.F., 2008. "Effects of social integration on preserving memory function in a nationally representative US elderly population," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(7), pages 1215-1220.
    9. James Banks & Cormac O'Dea & Zoë Oldfield, 2010. "Cognitive Function, Numeracy and Retirement Saving Trajectories," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(548), pages 381-410, November.
    10. Crooks, V.C. & Lubben, J. & Petitti, D.B. & Little, D. & Chiu, V., 2008. "Social network, cognitive function, and dementia incidence among elderly women," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(7), pages 1221-1227.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Social Participation and Cognition Later in Life
      by UDADISI in UDADISI on 2012-09-26 17:27:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kesavayuth, Dusanee & Liang, Yufang & Zikos, Vasileios, 2018. "An active lifestyle and cognitive function: Evidence from China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 183-191.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Haslam, Catherine & Cruwys, Tegan & Haslam, S. Alexander, 2014. "“The we's have it”: Evidence for the distinctive benefits of group engagement in enhancing cognitive health in aging," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 57-66.
    2. Geert Dhaene & Koen Jochmans, 2015. "Split-panel Jackknife Estimation of Fixed-effect Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(3), pages 991-1030.
    3. Christelis, Dimitris & Dobrescu, Loretti I., 2020. "The causal effect of social activities on cognition: Evidence from 20 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    4. Ellwardt, Lea & Van Tilburg, Theo G. & Aartsen, Marja J., 2015. "The mix matters: Complex personal networks relate to higher cognitive functioning in old age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 107-115.
    5. Rachel L. Peterson & Kristen M. George & Duyen Tran & Pallavi Malladi & Paola Gilsanz & Amy J. H. Kind & Rachel A. Whitmer & Lilah M. Besser & Oanh L. Meyer, 2021. "Operationalizing Social Environments in Cognitive Aging and Dementia Research: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-19, July.
    6. Tullio Jappelli, 2010. "Economic Literacy: An International Comparison," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(548), pages 429-451, November.
    7. Dennis, Allen & Shepherd, Ben, 2007. "Trade costs, barriers to entry, and export diversification in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4368, The World Bank.
    8. Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda, 2012. "Targeted Subsidies and Private Market Participation: An Assessment of Fertilizer Demand in Nigeria:," IFPRI discussion papers 1194, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    9. Lorenzo Cassi & Anne Plunket, 2014. "Proximity, network formation and inventive performance: in search of the proximity paradox," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 53(2), pages 395-422, September.
    10. Niklas Elert, 2014. "What determines entry? Evidence from Sweden," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 53(1), pages 55-92, August.
    11. Araujo, Claudio & Araujo-Bonjean, Catherine & Brunelin, Stéphanie, 2012. "Alert at Maradi: Preventing Food Crises by Using Price Signals," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1882-1894.
    12. John Geweke & Joel Horowitz & M. Hashem Pesaran, 2006. "Econometrics: A Bird’s Eye View," CESifo Working Paper Series 1870, CESifo.
    13. Jean-Paul Azam & Kartika Bhatia, 2017. "Provoking insurgency in a federal state: theory and application to India," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 183-210, March.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f6h8764enu2lskk9p4oq2cqb0 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. David M. Drukker, 2009. "Generalized method of moments estimators in Stata," DC09 Stata Conference 0, Stata Users Group.
    16. Antoine BozioBy & Carl Emmerson & Cormac O’Dea & Gemma Tetlow, 2017. "Do the rich save more? Evidence from linked survey and administrative data," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1101-1119.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/75dbbb2hc596np6q8flqf6i79k is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Brambilla, Irene, 2009. "Multinationals, technology, and the introduction of varieties of goods," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 89-101, September.
    19. Araujo, Claudio & Araujo-Bonjean, Catherine & Brunelin, Stephanie, 2011. "Alert at Maradi: Preventing Food Crises in West Africa by Using Price Signals," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114226, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Hübler, Olaf, 2005. "Panel Data Econometrics: Modelling and Estimation," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-319, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    21. Koen Jochmans, 2017. "Two-Way Models for Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 478-485, July.
    22. Massimo Filippini & Giuliano Masiero & Diego Medici, 2012. "The demand for school meals: an analysis of stated choices by Swiss households," Quaderni della facoltà di Scienze economiche dell'Università di Lugano 1204, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cognition; Ageing; Social Activities; SHARE; Panel Data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:asb:wpaper:201207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Elena Capatina (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceparau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.