Low salaries affect memory

Fuel and electricity will rise in price. The food is going up. Leisure, if there is time to enjoy it too. But salary stay. At best, in some sectors they have the audacity to play the calling card in order to keep paying their workers well below fair levels. And this has implications for both mental and physical health. A good example of this is what was shown in a study recently published in American Journal of Epidemiologywhich finds an association between low wages and memory loss later in life.

This study has also been presented at International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, what’s happening these days in San Diego. She was its first author Katrina KeziosColumbia University, who explained that their study “provides new evidence that the sustained impact of low wages during peak income years is associated with accelerated memory decline.”

They came to this conclusion after analyzing records from the US National Adult Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), for 1992-2016. Therefore, only one country and a very specific period is taken into account. However, apart from the economic differences of each country in each era, it would not be strange if this could be extrapolated to other groups, especially now that we are going through such tumultuous years.

Low salaries affect memory

The economic situation affects health. Whoever denies it simply looks the other way. It suffices to note that in most studies of diseases, along with such factors as gender, age or genetic predisposition, they are usually taken into account. level of education or socioeconomic status.

It has been observed that low wages can contribute to disorders and symptoms such as depression, obesity, or hypertension. These, in turn, accelerate cognitive decline. Therefore, it is not surprising that Memory. But this is something that has not been analyzed so far.

In this study, data from 2879 people born between 1936 and 1941.. Low wages were defined as hourly wages less than two-thirds of the federal median wage for the relevant year. Thus, the participants were divided into three groups depending on whether they never had low wages, whether they always had it, or whether they received it only periodically. They later compared this information with data memory decline over the next 12 years.

They found that those who spent almost their entire working life on low wages had significantly faster memory deterioration in old age. Actually they had another year of cognitive aging for every ten years.

For this reason, the statement released by the authors of this study calls for an increase in the minimum wage. We are talking about the United States, where the investigation was conducted. However, it is clear that this should be the maxim in other countries. And there is nothing better than doing what you love. But even when you enjoy your profession, the choice should always be to work to live, not live to work. And, above all, work on being able to remember it.