interview
Status: 05.02.2023 5:47 p.m
Many people reject a high retirement age. The scientist Hendrik Schmitz warns in conversation with tagesschau.de, Retirement can accelerate mental decline.
tagesschau.de: After a long working life, almost everyone looks forward to a well-deserved retirement. But according to their study, it also has its downsides. What are they and how do they affect our mental fitness?
Henrik Schmitz: With more free time, our life satisfaction increases when we retire. But what we’ve found is a mental decline that’s accelerated by retirement.
There can be several reasons for this. The main one is the so-called “use it or lose it” hypothesis: the brain is in a way like a muscle that needs to be stimulated and challenged. When we retire from work, we have significantly fewer mental challenges than before. Another reason can be the loss of social contacts.
To person
Hendrik Schmitz is Professor of Statistics and Quantitative Methods of Empirical Economic Research at the University of Paderborn and scientist at the RWI – Leibnitz Institute for Economic Research in Essen. He examines the decline in cognitive abilities of older people in Europe and the USA.
A gradual process
tagesschau.de: What exactly does this mental decline look like when we retire?
Henrik Schmitz: In the cognitive ability word recall test we evaluated, over a ten-year period, people remember one fewer word due to aging and one fewer word due to retirement.
The effect of retirement on memory is roughly equivalent to the age-related decline, which occurs on average between the ages of 60 and 70.
tagesschau.de: When you look at the results, are there differences between people?
Henrik Schmitz: There is a difference between retirees and early retirees. A 70-year-old who retired at the age of 60 lost twice as much as a 70-year-old who worked a long time. In other words, the normal cognitive decline that people experience over a ten-year period is doubled once they retire.
With a retirement age of 63, cognitive performance may not change in the first year until the creeping process begins. Those who retire at the age of 67 – for example because they like to work – experience a drop in these skills as soon as they retire. We attribute this to the fact that these people are often in more intellectually demanding jobs than those who happily retired at 63.
Study by RWI and the University of Paderborn 2022
The international study evaluated the performance of almost 100,000 people between the ages of 50 and 75 in standardized word memory tests. The central results:
– Retirement is likely to lead to faster cognitive aging for most people because of the loss of mental demands, recognition and social contacts.
– After a sudden deterioration in physical condition, the cognitive abilities of older people also decrease significantly and persistently.
“Late retirement has a bad reputation”
tagesschau.de: Is a social rethink necessary, and should we all be working longer?
Henrik Schmitz: No one is demanding that people should now work until they are 80 because of their mental abilities. Late retirement has consistently had a bad reputation. We would like to point out that in terms of mental fitness, it is generally better for everyone to work a little longer. Sooner or later we all retire, which is a good thing.
Retiring later due to a shortage of skilled workers?
tagesschau.de: In view of the demographic development, the shortage of skilled workers is one of the central challenges of the coming decades. What retirement age can we really afford in Germany?
Henrik Schmitz: In Germany, on average, we retire later than in many other European countries; in particular, we already have a comparatively high statutory retirement age. We also have a relatively high labor force participation rate among older workers. Nevertheless, I think there is still potential for more – not only for the sustainability of the pension system, but also to overcome the shortage of skilled workers.
Currently, the working-age population is falling by about half a million people (net) each year. We have a net immigration of about 300,000 to 400,000 people. There is still a gap here, after all we need these workers. We should also do more to ensure that older unemployed people can get back into work and that older workers are better employed in the company.
“Not necessarily early retirement”
tagesschau.de: What can we do to not only get through everyday work well, but also to get well into retirement?
Henrik Schmitz: In principle, we should always continue our education and, if necessary, reorientate ourselves professionally in the event of health problems. The path does not necessarily have to be early retirement if you simply can no longer be a carer in your mid-50s.
This is of course easier said than done, and it is not always in the hands of the individual, but we as a society should pay attention to this and show alternatives.