"lower cognitive functioning [..] was linked to [..] loneliness, depression, inactivity and obesity"<p>In short, this is a lifestyle issue of their own making. In my area, housing prices are high and rental apartments are sparse, because we have lots of villas with garden that would be large enough to comfortably fit a family with 3+ kids but are instead occupied by one lonely old person.<p>It would be much better, both for the elderly and for the younger generation, if they'd move to communal living or rent out their unused space to a family. That would make it less lonely plus they are helping those people indirectly paying for their retirement (by generating value for those companies that retirement funds buy stocks of).<p>But it appears that nostalgia and vanity get in the way.
> <i>"Findings showed that average cognition scores of adults aged 50 and older increased from generation to generation, beginning with the greatest generation (born 1890-1923) and peaking among war babies (born 1942-1947). Scores began to decline in the early baby boomers (born 1948-1953) and decreased further in the mid baby boomers (born 1954-1959)."</i><p>Wait what? 1946 is the defining year of the Baby Boom, and now people born in that year don't even count as baby boomers anymore?<p>I'm always a bit baffled when I see people born in the late 1950s or even the 1960s counted as baby boomers, but to see people from the actual defining year of the baby boom not counted as baby boomers is bizarre.<p>My parents were both born in 1946 as part of the baby boom. They are not war babies. Their parents (my grandparents) all married after the war. They are the quintessential baby boomers, and this study starts out by classifying them as something else.<p>I originally wanted to make a joke about the title (cue Millennials: "we <i>knew</i> it!"), but if your study hinges on misclassifying the group you're claiming to study, I find it hard to take the study very seriously.
Baby boomers are most likely to vote right wing conservative.<p>And so there is always bias present in "research" conducted by left leaning sources.