People who use math or reading skills regularly do not experience aging-driven decline in cognitive skills, according to a new longitudinal study. The researchers found that, for most individuals, cognitive skills increased into their forties before declining, and did not drop at all for people with above-average skill usage at work or at home.

These findings suggest that cognitive decline with age is not a given, which could help alleviate economic concerns for countries with aging populations and a decreasing labor market, the authors note.

Previous research has indicated that cognitive skill levels begin to drop in early adulthood. However, these studies relied largely on data involving different cohorts of adults, rather than following the same population over time. Here, the team hypothesized that perceived age-related skill changes could be due to differences in skill levels between cohorts.

They analyzed data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which tested language and math skills in a German population ages 16-65, and then re-tested a large sample of the cohort 3.5 years later. Participants were also asked how frequently they performed activities such as reading emails or calculating costs at work or at home.

After error adjustment, they found that people with above-average frequency of skill usage at work or at home did not show any skill decline with age. For white-collar and higher-educated workers with above-average skill usage, skill levels increased consistently beyond their forties before flattening out.

The authors also noted that math skills declined more sharply for women than men with age. “These results thus suggest that age-skill relationships of adults deserve policy attention, consistent with concerns about the necessity of lifelong learning,” the authors concluded.

To read the full article, published in Science Advances, click here