How Do Job Skills That Decline With Age Affect White-Collar Workers?

As people age, their reaction times slow, flexibility diminishes, and strength declines. These changes in physical and sensory abilities are easy to spot. Thus, research on retirement timing assumes that people in blue-collar jobs, which often rely on these abilities, will retire relatively early. Conversely, researchers often assume that white-collar workers can retire later. But the cognitive abilities needed for many white-collar jobs, like memory and mental speed, also decline with age. And some white-collar jobs also rely on physical or sensory abilities – for example, oral surgeons must have dexterous fingers, steady hands, and excellent eyesight. These observations raise an obvious question: can all white-collar workers remain productive well into their sixties and, if not, which jobs are most vulnerable to age-related decline? To answer these questions, this brief presents a “Susceptibility Index,” which measures how likely the physical and cognitive abilities required by an occupation are to decline during the working years. Using the Index, this brief identifies white-collar jobs in which older workers could have a hard time remaining productive, ultimately leading to earlier retirements. This analysis has implications for policymakers and researchers, who often suggest working longer as a way to boost retirement income security and who may implicitly assume that it will be easier for white-collar workers. This brief proceeds as follows. The first section describes the Susceptibility Index. The second section illustrates that even though blue-collar jobs are more likely than white-collar jobs to rely on abilities that decline relatively quickly, some white-collar jobs may be quite hard to continue for those in their sixties. The third section describes how the Index affects the retirement timing of white-collar workers, using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The fourth section concludes that white-collar workers with jobs that rely on abilities that decline early will face similar difficulties