ArticleAdvances in life course research2025
Life course socioeconomic position and cognitive aging in later life: A scoping review.
Article in Advances in life course research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prospective associations between the state minimum wage and cognitive function in older Americans.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- MethylCog predicts six-year cognitive ability beyond blood-based ADRD biomarkers.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Childhood socioeconomic status and episodic memory in later life: the moderating roles of education and social class in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2002-2024).BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Life-course socioeconomic trajectories and cognitive aging in Chinese middle-aged and older adults.Innovation in aging · 2026Article
- Personality as mechanism: An integrative model of five-factor model personality traits as a mechanism between earlier life factors and cognitive aging.Current opinion in psychology · 2025Review
- The predictive power of employment trajectories on cognition of older adults: Evidence from Chile.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesLow socioeconomic position (SEP) throughout the life course is related to poorer cognitive health in later life, but debate ensues on the life course models for this association. To advance inquiry on the topic, we conducted a scoping review. RESEARCH DESIGN AND
methodsWe examined the association between life course SEP and cognitive function in later life in observational studies-considering cognition both as a cross-sectional level and as a longitudinal trajectory across cognitive domains-and assessed whether the empirical evidence supported life course models. We focused on studies in the general population with cognition measured in the second half of life (45 +). Forty-two studies (21 datasets) were included representing 595,276 participants (201,375 across unique datasets) from 46 countries.
resultsFor cognitive level, studies consistently found associations between SEP at various stages of the life course, both in overall cognition and across specific cognitive domains. These associations were generally robust to confounding and mediating factors. For cognitive trajectory, studies showed inconclusive associations with SEP across life course and across cognitive domains. Results supported the sensitive period, pathway, and accumulation models, but not the critical period model. Results supported that education acts as a pathway (and potential mediator) in the association between early-life SEP and later-life cognition. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: SEP throughout the life course has a robust association with later-life cognitive level, but not decline. Early-life cognitive enrichment for young people raised in socioeconomically disadvantaged households may reduce the SEP gap in cognitive functioning during later life.
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