Переходная занятость защищает когнитивные функции лучше полного выхода на пенсию

'Bridge employment' may have protective effect on cognition compared with full retirement Key takeaways: - People who semi-retired with a new employer, called bridge employment, had higher cognitive scores compared with other groups. - Results were significant across genders and a variety of pre-retirement job types. People who pursue semi-retirement with a different employer experienced less cognitive decline compared with those who stayed with the same employer and those who pursued full retirement, according to a speaker. Gradually leaving the labor force instead of suddenly ending employment may have a “protective effect” on cognition, Wei Yang, PhD, director of Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London, said during her presentation at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference. “People who have changed companies, they are likely to have to learn new skills, to adapt to a new environment, to meet new people, and that is a form of brain stimulation,” Yang said. The study was inspired by a gap in research that Yang said she identified regarding the evolving definition of “retirement.” “Most empirical studies, especially quantitative studies, treat retirement as a binary decision, so whether you retire or not,” Yang said. “However, these days people retire in very different ways. Previous studies are not able to capture that. So, in this study, we really wanted to understand how the different retirement pathways would influence cognition.” Yang and colleagues used 2002 through 2021 data from the English Longitudinal Study on Aging, examining 5,532 individuals aged 50 to 80 years. All participants were employed or self-employed at the time of their first interview. According to Yang, one benefit of the data source was that it allowed researchers to separate individuals into different retirement pathways: - non-retired, or people who are not self-identified as retired; - full retirement, or people who exited the labor market voluntarily; - phased retirement, or people who are semi-retired but work with the same employer; and - bridge employment, or people who are semi-retired but work with a different employer. Among the people Yang and colleagues studied, 59% were non-retired, 32% pursued full retirement, 7% pursued bridge employment and 2% pursued phased retirement. Individuals were tested on orientation, memory and verbal fluency, with a composite cognitive score of all three tests. Those who pursued bridge employment received significantly higher scores across all four categories, according to Yang’s presentation. In orientation, the bridge employment group had a coefficient of 0.24 compared with non-retirement, meaning it was associated with better cognition (P < .05). For memory, verbal fluency and composite cognitive score, the bridge retirement group had coefficients of 4.21 (P < .01), 6.29 (P < .01) and 1.27 (P < .01), respectively. In comparison, those who pursued full retirement had negative coefficients across the board, including significant coefficients of –0.67 for memory (P < .01) and –0.16 for composite cognitive score (P < 01). No significant results were observed for phased retirement, Yang said, highlighting the key difference between the phased retirement and bridge employment approaches. The results were significant across different pre-retirement job categories, as well as for both genders, Yang said. Yang said the results point to the importance of experiencing new challenges through a more gradual retirement. She said employers and policymakers should encourage retirement plans such as bridge employment and part-time work. “For policymakers, we think you should encourage more flexible retirement pathways to provide more incentives for the employers to hire older adults and also to support later life career changes through trainings and reduced barriers,” she said. For more information: Wei Yang, MD, can be reached at [email protected].