New paper: “How Do Job Skills That Decline With Age Affect White-Collar Workers?”

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has released a new Issue in Brief:

“How Do Job Skills That Decline With Age Affect White-Collar Workers?”

by Anek Belbase, Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher, and Christopher M. Gillis

The brief’s key findings are:

• The ability to work longer can be hampered by skills that decline with age.
• Declining physical skills – such as diminished strength and flexibility – are easy to spot and often associated with blue-collar jobs.
• But white-collar jobs may also require abilities that decline with age, including cognitive and fine motor skills.
• The analysis created an index measuring the reliance on skills that decline with age for over 900 occupations.
• The results show that while blue-collar jobs are more vulnerable to eroding skills, some white-collar jobs are vulnerable too, which can lead to earlier retirements.

This brief is available here.