Retirement and cognitive reserve: a stochastic frontier approach applied to survey data

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of the stochastic frontier approach to analyse the relationship between cognitive performance, retirement and non-professional activities of the 50+ individuals using data from three surveys conducted in Europe (the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and the English Longitudinal Survey on Ageing) and United States (the Health and Retirement Study). Next to the strong relationship between cognitive performance, age and education, this study highlights the negative effect of retirement and the positive impact of non-professional activities and social contacts