Staying sharp: gendered work–family life courses and later-life cognitive functioning across four European welfare states

Cognitive functioning in later life is influenced by reserves accumulated through employment and family roles over the life course. This study examined men's and women's combined employment, parenthood, and partnership roles between ages 15 and 49 years, and their associations with later-life memory. We used retrospective and prospective data from nine waves of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for 5638 men (24 199 observations) and 6371 women (27 114 observations) in Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Multichannel sequence analysis (MCSQA) and hierarchical clustering identified six work-family life course types for men and nine for women. Random-effects linear regression models indicate that weak labor market attachment is associated with lower memory performance among women, whereas the absence of family roles is more strongly negatively associated with memory among men. Women's cognitive gaps were most pronounced in Italy and least in Sweden and the Netherlands, while men's gaps were greater in Sweden and France. These findings suggest that gendered life courses contribute to different patterns of cognitive and relational reserve accumulation for men and women, and that welfare states buffer the negative consequences of adverse life courses on cognitive health. This article is part of a Special Collection on Cross-National Gerontology.