New Delhi: Scientists have known for decades that education helps in cognitive simulation, which plays a protective role against dementia. But new research indicates the kind of work people do may influence long-term brain health.
A growing number of studies across Europe, Asia and North America now suggest that the complexity of a person’s occupation, particularly the degree of decision-making, problem-solving and social interaction that is involved day-to-day, is closely linked to their likelihood of developing dementia.
Researchers argue that work, which occupies a third of most adults’ waking hours, is one of the most sustained cognitive exposures in life, and therefore it is a major contributor to what neuroscientists call “cognitive reserve.”
A major 2025 analysis by researchers at University College London, published in the BMC Psychiatry, examined data from over 3,84,000 adults in the UK Biobank, a biomedical database. The study set out to determine why higher education lowers dementia risk and found that occupational complexity accounted for 73 per cent of the association. Average income, health outcomes and health behaviours also acted as mediators, explaining 10 per cent, 27 per cent and 35 per cent of the relationship respectively.
“Education likely reduces dementia risk primarily by enabling individuals to enter occupations that are more cognitively demanding,” the authors wrote. They also noted that the protective benefits of education were substantially weakened once job type was factored into the model.
The study emphasised that complex jobs tend to provide “continuous cognitive stimulation across decades,” which may contribute more heavily to cognitive resilience than formal schooling alone.
Also read: Dementia wave is hitting Indian homes. Families are exhausted, healthcare unprepared
Work impacts life
A 2022 study published in Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease had followed 10,195 adults from six countries, examining how long they lived before developing dementia. The researchers found that people who spent their lives in jobs that required independent decision-making, coordination of people or resources, or complex information processing had experienced significantly longer dementia-free survival.
“Using datasets from a wide range of geographical regions, we found that both early life education and adulthood occupational complexity were independently predictive of dementia. Education and occupational experiences occur during early life and adulthood respectively, and dementia prevention efforts could thus be made at different stages of the life course,” the authors wrote.
The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Jinshil Hyun, noted in the paper that these findings support the cognitive reserve hypothesis. “Complex mental activities related to work may reinforce neural networks,” the study states, “allowing individuals to continue functioning effectively even in the presence of brain pathology.”
Other research has found that occupations with low levels of autonomy may be associated with higher dementia risk. A 2024 study published in ‘Neurology’, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology found that workers in jobs involving repetitive tasks, limited control over workflow, or restricted problem-solving had a greater chance (66 per cent likelihood by the age of 70) of experiencing cognitive decline in later life.
For the study, researchers investigated the work and later-life cognitive health of 7,003 people in Norway, representing 305 unique types of jobs.
“Occupational environments that limit decision-making opportunities may reduce cognitive stimulation during working life,” the paper noted. “Over time, this may impact the development of cognitive reserve.”
Job disruptions could also impact cognitive reserve. A 2023 study in The Lancet Healthy Longevity had found that negative wealth shocks in later life were associated with poorer cognitive outcomes, suggesting that financial and social disruptions—including job loss—may play a role in accelerating cognitive decline.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)