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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Glob. Womens Health
Sec. Aging in Women
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2024.1458553
This article is part of the Research Topic Women’s Brain Health and Aging through the Lifespan View all 10 articles

The Absence of Formal Work Experience May Affect the Rate of Cognitive Decline in Older Adult Women: Findings from the Health and Retirement Study

Provisionally accepted
Daya K. Grewal Daya K. Grewal 1,2*Molly Patapoff Molly Patapoff 3,4Victoria Liou-Johnson Victoria Liou-Johnson 5,6Maheen M. Adamson Maheen M. Adamson 2,5,7Dylan J. Jester Dylan J. Jester 2
  • 1 Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, United States
  • 2 Women’s Operational Military Exposure Network Center of Excellence, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California, United States
  • 3 Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging,University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States
  • 4 University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States
  • 5 VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Veterans Health Administration, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Palo Alto, California, United States
  • 6 Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States
  • 7 School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: This study investigated the relationship between years of employment and cognitive health among older non-Latinx Black, Latinx, and non-Latinx White women. We hypothesized that women who had never been formally employed (i.e., zero years of formal work experience) would exhibit a pronounced cognitive decline. Methods: Our study included 5,664 older adult women from the Health and Retirement Study (2010–2016) aged 65–101 (M = 75.41). Out of 5,664 participants, 850 identified as non-Latinx Black, 475 identified as Latinx, and 4,339 identified as non-Latinx White. Furthermore, 5,292 women indicated having a professional employment history of at least one year, whereas 372 women reported no formal work experience. The Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-27 (TICS-27) was used to assess cognitive performance. Linear mixed effects models were conducted to assess whether employment history was associated with the rate of cognitive decline. Results: In all three racial and ethnic groups, lower age, higher education, greater number of years worked, fewer chronic conditions, and greater household income were associated with better cognitive performance at baseline (p<.05). Additionally, women who had not worked in any formal capacity had a lower baseline cognitive performance (p<.001) and a more extreme decline in cognitive performance over time (p=.04). Conclusion: In conclusion, we found that women without any formal work experience performed lower at baseline and experienced a steeper cognitive decline over time. These findings underscore the need to further explore the complex interrelationships between employment duration and cognitive trajectories, especially among older women and those from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

    Keywords: Cognitive Reserve, Occupation, Gender norms, Socioeconomic Factors, ethnic minority, Aging

    Received: 02 Jul 2024; Accepted: 03 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Grewal, Patapoff, Liou-Johnson, Adamson and Jester. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Daya K. Grewal, Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.