Americans Retire Later, but Keep Sharp Longer

By Justin Lahart
WSJ

After the worst recession since the 1930s left household finances in tatters, many Americans won’t be retiring nearly as soon as they hoped. A quarter of workers in a recent survey conducted by the Employment Benefit Research Institute said they postponed their expected retirement age in the past year.

But here’s one upside to the extra years they’ll spend on the job: Working longer can keep you sharper, new research suggests.

The clue? Workers in the U.S. retire much later than in other countries. About half of American workers aged 60 to 64 work. In Germany, only a third do, and in France, only a sixth. A glance at how 60 to 64 year olds score on memory tests reveals a starkly similar pattern: They do best in the U.S., worse in Germany, worse still in France.

Susann Rohwedder of the RAND Corp. and Robert Willis of the University of Michigan, in research published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, say that offers convincing evidence that by exercising the mind, people can stave off cognitive decline.

Researchers have long suspected that to be true, because people who read, play bridge and do crosswords tend to stay more mentally acute as the age than people who do not. But there’s a problem figuring out what causes what. Is it engaging in intellectually stimulating activities that leads to better cognitive performance in old age? Or is it that people with better cognitive skills are drawn to read, play bridge and do crosswords?

(More here.)