Occupational
Association between lifecourse employment instability and midlife word recall S. Amina Gaye* S. Amina Gaye Lucia Pacca Anusha M. Vable
There is a relationship between longest held or last occupation and dementia risk through mechanisms such as income and job demands. However, little work has evaluated the effect of employment on cognition over the lifecourse. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), we assessed whether employment instability is associated with midlife word recall.
We used weekly employment status of NLSY79 participants (N = 4424) from ages 22-48. Each week was classified as employed, unemployed, out of the labor force, or unreported. Due to marked heterogeneity in employment patterns by gender, we stratified analyses by men and women. Cognitive measure was immediate word recall evaluated at age 48. We used sequence analysis to quantify differences between employment trajectories and cluster analysis to group similar trajectories. We used linear regressions to estimate the association between employment instability and midlife word recall adjusted for race, education, parental education, and birthplace.
Five employment trajectories were identified for men (predominantly employed, seldom unemployed/out of the labor force, predominantly employed after 35, precariously employed, and out of the labor force), and six for women (predominantly employed, precariously employed until 35, precariously employed then out of labor force at 35, precariously employed, out of the labor force then precariously employed, out of the labor force). Compared to men who were predominantly employed, those who were out of the labor force (β:-0.92, 95% CI:-1.3,-0.58) had the lowest immediate word recall scores. Compared to women who were predominantly employed, those who were out of the labor force and then precariously employed had the lowest immediate word recall scores (β:-0.4, 95% CI:-0.71,-0.11).
In both men and women, cognitive performance was worse among those who were predominantly out of the labor force or precariously employed compared to those with more consistent employment.
