Background: Educational attainment is highly correlated with social inequalities in adult cognitive health; however, the nature of this correlation is in dispute. Recently, researchers have argued that educational inequalities are an artefact of selection by individual differences in prior cognitive ability, which both drives educational attainment and tracks across the rest of the life course. Although few would deny that educational attainment is at least partly determined by prior cognitive ability, a complementary, yet controversial, view is that education has a direct causal and lasting benefit on cognitive development.

Methods: We use observational data from three birth cohorts, with cognition measured in adolescence and adulthood. Ordinary least squares regression was used to model the relationship between adolescent cognition and adult fluid cognition and to test the sensitivity of our analyses to sample selection, projection and backdoor biases using propensity score matching.

Results: We find that having a university education is correlated with higher fluid cognition in adulthood, after adjustment for adolescent cognition. We do not find that adolescent cognition, gender or parental social class consistently modify this effect; however, women benefited more in the 1946 sample from Great Britain.

Conclusions: In all three birth cohorts, substantial educational benefit remained after adjustment for adolescent cognition and parental social class, offsetting an effect equivalent of 0.5 to 1.5 standard deviations lower adolescent cognition. We also find that the likelihood of earning a university degree depends in part on adolescent cognition, gender and parental social class. We conclude that inequalities in adult cognition derive in part from educational experiences after adolescence.

This study examined the socioeconomic pathways linking partnership status to physical functioning, assessed using objective measures of late life physical functioning, including peak flow and grip strength. Using Wave 4 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we ran multilevel models to examine the relationship between partnership status and physical function in late life, adjusting for social-network characteristics, socioeconomic factors, and health behaviours. We found a robust relationship between partnership status and physical function. Incorporating social-network characteristics, socioeconomic factors, and health behaviours showed independent robust relationships with physical function. Co-variates attenuated the impact of cohabitation, separation, and widowhood on physical function; robust effects were found for singlehood and divorce. Sex-segregated analyses suggest that associations between cohabitation, singlehood, divorce, and widowhood were larger for men than for women. Results suggest that social ties are important to improved physical function.

Participants in the Healthy Old People in Edinburgh (HOPE) study (N = 398) were assessed on Raven's Progressive Matrices and Logical Memory on up to three occasions. Covariates included education, social class, disease and medication status, blood pressure and study outcome. Raven's score declined linearly with age, whereas decline in Logical Memory was accelerating. There was significant variation in individuals' rates of decline for Ravens but not Logical Memory. Slope–intercept covariances were not significant. Those who later developed dementia already exhibited lower scores, more so for Logical Memory than Raven's. Death and study attrition were related to performance, again greater for Logical Memory. Conclusions: The HOPE approach of progressive screening is a feasible and practical method for studying healthy cognitive ageing. As predicted for an initially healthy sample, rates of decline were relatively homogeneous. The hypothesis of differential decline was not supported, nor was a strict interpretation of the hypothesis that cognitive ageing is entirely pathology driven.

Personality traits have emerged as significant contributors to physical and mental health, as well as various economic outcomes including income. Few studies have explored whether personality is related to the frequency of days lost on the job due to physical or mental health issues, and the subsequent economic losses as a result. The current study bridged the health, economic, and personality variables to determine whether personality was associated with earnings lost due to work cut back days from poor physical or mental health. We found, both concurrently and over a 10 year follow up, that high neuroticism and low openness were associated with more earnings lost due to mental health, while low extraversion was associated with more earnings lost due to physical health. These findings are interpreted in light of the effects that personality may have on an individual’s career and financial outcomes, and the economic effects of untreated physical and mental health problems.