Longitudinal evidence of social influences on cognitive decline in South Korea: Focusing on the joint effects of age, gender, and education

Abstract

A burgeoning research documented protective effects of education on later life cognitive health but available evidences of gender difference, or female disadvantage, in cognitive health have not been consistent --some supporting female disadvantage while others no meaningful difference between genders. This study, through examining the joint effect of gender, age and education on cognitive health, aims to test whether and to what extent portrayed gender difference depends on education. This study, utilizing Korean Longitudinal Survey of Aging (KLoSA), analyzed 5,772 persons aged 45 and over who have completed five times of biannual survey since 2006. The results from the random coefficient model indicate that female disadvantage in cognitive health is indeed observed and it increases as age advances. Furthermore, the growing gender difference with age depends on education. More specifically, no cognitive disadvantage observed among female with high education yet increasing cognitive disadvantage with age observed among female with low education. The findings suggest that the female disadvantage in cognitive decline observed frequently by previous research may be conditional on socio-environmental contexts such as age and education.