Association of Low Hourly Wages in Middle Age With Faster Memory Decline in Older Age: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study

Abstract

Little research has investigated the long-term relationship between low wages and memory decline, despite the growing share of low-wage workers in the US labor market. Here, we examine whether cumulative exposure to low wages over 12 years in midlife is associated with memory decline in later life. Using 1992-2016 data from the Health and Retirement Study, we analyzed data from 2,879 individuals born 1936-1941 using confounder-adjusted linear mixed-effects models. Low-wage was defined as hourly wage lower than two-thirds of the federal median wage for the corresponding year and categorized into ‘never’, ‘intermittent’, and ‘sustained’ based on wages earned from 1992-2004. Memory function was measured at each visit from 2004-2016 by a memory composite score. The confounder-adjusted annual rate of memory decline among ‘never’ low-wage earners was -0.12 standard units, 95% CI: [-0.13, -0.10]. Compared with this, memory decline among workers with sustained earning of low midlife wages was significantly faster (β_{time*sustained}:-0.014, 95% CI: [-0.02, -0.01]), corresponding to an annual rate of -0.13 standard units for this group. Sustained low-wage earning in midlife was significantly associated with a downward trajectory of memory performance in older age. Enhancing social policies to protect low-wage workers may be especially beneficial for their cognitive health.