
Use It Too Much and Lose It? The Effect of Working Hours on Cognitive Ability [pdf] - analyst74
https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2016n07.pdf
======
Noseshine
The TL;DR summary from the abstract:

    
    
        > For working hours up to around 25 hours a week, an increase in working hours
        > has a positive impact on cognitive functioning. However, when working hours
        > exceed 25 hours per week, an increase in working hours has a negative impact
        > on cognition.
    

No significant difference between women and men.

Important detail: They _only_ looked at people 40 or older, so no conclusions
should be attempted _based on this paper alone_ about differences between
older and younger groups (above/below 40). Looking at their tables at the end
of the paper I also didn't see any stratification by age within the sampled
group, they only listed the sample size for three (15 years wide) age groups
(Table II).

~~~
leshow
no conclusions should be drawn from a single study period, and especially
considering this was survey data.

~~~
Noseshine

        > no conclusions should be drawn from a single study period
    

I didn't see the point in pointing out the obvious - I thought that's as
annoying as on reddit's /r/science the inevitable single-sentence comment
"correlation is not causation" for no reason whatsoever (i.e. when nobody made
that claim). I pointed out the age threshold because there _was_ a comment (of
only 6 or 7 total at that point) that attempted to draw the conclusion that
older people are doing worse.

~~~
JohnDoe365
From what do you come to the conclusion that older people are doing worse?
Worse in respect to what?

The paper more or less confirms from the cognitive domain, that we are working
to much. Upto 25 hours are the best. This interestingly coincides with claims
from others, eg. UBI folks, to work less for increased productivity. Seems we
are getting more and more factual prove that eg. redistribution of wealth
should be done not by increasing taxes but by getting more people into the
workforce in exchange of others working less (and earning less).

~~~
Noseshine

       > From what do you come to the conclusion that older people are doing worse?
    

What on earth are you asking me??? I don't! Please actually _read_ what people
write before clicking on "Reply"!

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aab0
This is one of the most unconvincing instruments I've ever seen in an
economics paper. They don't even try to justify why variables like 'parents
alive' (!), 'other public benefits' (!!), 'owning your own house' (!!!), or
'number of children' or 'work experience' (!!!!) are all causally independent
of intelligence. There's no way these form a valid instrument allowing causal
inference.

Hey, why not throw in education or grades while you're at it, after all, "The
validity of the variables used to generate exclusion restrictions needs to be
investigated in future research", since that would be as valid an instrumental
variable as any of the others...

(I also object to the media framing this as an argument for 3-day work weeks.
If cognitive performance peaked at 3-days, employee performance could still be
way worse due to the few hours split up, in addition to the economic overhead
for businesses of having many part-timers.)

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acd
Here is a study from the game industry where game scores are compared to
coding crunch.
[http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/Th...](http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_4_Crunch_Makes_Games_Worse.php)

There is GDP per hour worked.
[http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV](http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV)

~~~
Loic
This game industry study is a really really nice study. They take the time to
analyse the effects of crunch/overtime at different levels and if voluntary or
not. The first time I see such nice study for programming/creative work. We
had many aggregate studies or on production lines, but not so much for
creative work.

Really a recommended read.

------
ultramancool
I didn't read it in detail, so forgive me if this was accounted for, but I
feel like this would be hard to control as people who are not working at all
or working extremely long hours may not be as capable as those working a
normal or slightly lower than normal numbers of hours to begin with.

For example, if I can get a job and make enough money in a shorter number of
hours, I'm probably smarter than the person who can't get or a job or the
person who has to work 65+ hours a week, even if accounting for degree or
similar.

~~~
johnfn
I'm not convinced by this line of reasoning. Some of the highest paid jobs -
Doctor, lawyer - have the longest hours. On the other hand, part time jobs are
often minimum wage and low paying jobs (Walmart etc).

~~~
marcosdumay
Hum... And the study concluded that both extremes correlate with lower
cognitive ability.

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Klockan
I'd wager that this is mostly due to mental exhaustion making people unable to
devote a lot of effort to these tests and that it will go away after a few
weeks of vacation.

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gexla
I scanned this, but didn't catch where it defines what work is. I'm probably
taking this paper out of context of what it's meant for. These sorts of things
never seem to define work though. This is important for situations where you
never have to leave the home to do your work. Is reading considered work? How
about brushing my teeth? Does anyone actually do more work over 40 hours in
the office than someone who would do the same tasks from home?

------
kpil
I'm not convinced about the low optimum.

There seems to be a clear correlation between employment and ability, but then
they bend the data into a model that seems to exaggerate the differences
between >35 and <35 cohorts.

I have worked to much to have energy to read the details, but if the
"unemployed" group does not include retired people, then the causality might
be in the other direction...

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throwanem
Why are there missing figures and tables? Is this a prepublication version
that got uploaded and linked by mistake?

~~~
aab0
Preprints are very common in economics. Their papers can float around for
years before being 'published'. The figures & tables are at the end of the
PDF.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-
world/world/article976...](http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-
world/world/article97616417.html), which points to this.

------
xlayn
To me seems logical: As we get older more and more energy would be used on
preservation (read it as fix damage and less efficient process as result of
age), therefore shrinking/eliminating everything not being used it's
necessary.

Edit: TL;DR: From the PDF conslussions:

it is found that working hours up to 25–30 hours per week have a positive
impact on cognition for males depending on the measure and up to 22–27 hours
for females. After that, working hours have a negative impact on cognitive
functioning.

~~~
Noseshine

        > To me seems logical: As we get older...
    

Since the paper _only_ looked at people above 40, I don't see how you can make
any such conclusion. There is nothing about younger people. They _may_ do
better - they may also be the same or worse. They were not even included.

~~~
xlayn
Nice catch, there are two parts in trying to support my theory, first included
in my post:

As we get older more and more energy would be used on preservation (read it as
fix damage and less efficient process as result of age), therefore
shrinking/eliminating everything not being used it's necessary.

The second is an entry on how our bodies are machines oriented to try to avoid
wasting energy... or better said preserving it... for that part my canonical
reference would be the Algernon argument:

[http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics](http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics)

~~~
Noseshine
That is just your opinion - and it isn't even clear that it means anything. I
don't see any supporting _evidence_. I'm not saying you are wrong (wrong with
what, anyway? It's so vague and empty), I'm saying it's just some "statement",
nothing more. Even so your list suffers from some severe selection bias: You
chose exactly what supports your _idea_. What about greater "wisdom" of older
people? Less desire to succeed at all cost, i.e. possibly more relaxed and
willing to look at the big picture? Those two are just "statements", "ideas",
so just like you :)

    
    
        > The second is an entry on how our bodies are machines oriented to try to avoid wasting energy
    

Without even going into details about that sentence, that is a statement
without a point. What exactly do you want to use it for? To show what? How?

The 1st part _" our bodies are machines"_ is as trite a statement as it gets,
pardon me for pointing this out.

The 2nd part _" oriented to try to avoid wasting energy"_ is just as bad if
not worse - if the main focus of our bodies was just that suicide and eternal
sleep would be the best option to achieve that goal.

    
    
        > As we get older more and more energy would be used on preservation...
    
        > ...therefore shrinking/eliminating everything not being used it's necessary.
    

What is that even supposed to mean. Either part. Nor does it seem right
(having taken medical courses such as physiology) - citation needed (after
defining what you actually mean) for part 1, part 2 is completely unclear I'm
sorry to say. What shrinks? What is eliminated?

~~~
coldtea
> _That is just your opinion - and it isn 't even clear that it means
> anything. I don't see any supporting evidence._

No, it's not his "opinion", it is his argument. And he provided argumentation
why this might be the case.

It surely is not verified or fact, but it's not merely some subjective
opinion.

~~~
Noseshine

        > And he provided argumentation why this might be the case.
    

You are either a troll - and a bad one - or a troll. Posting a random link to
_something_ isn't "evidence". Not to mention that he didn't _say anything_ ,
he just wrote "words". Impressive you are impressed.

    
    
        > No, it's not his "opinion", it is his argument. And he provided argumentation
        > why this might be the case.
    

So if I argue it's no longer subjective? I think you have the wrong idea about
subjective/objective.

As somebody else (jstanley) responded to a comment in another thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12364193](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12364193)):

    
    
        > ...for the argument to have any weight you need to show that it is true, not simply state it.

~~~
coldtea
> _Posting a random link to something isn 't "evidence". Not to mention that
> he didn't say anything, he just wrote "words". Impressive you are
> impressed._

I didn't say that parent gave evidence. I say he gave an argument -- you know,
premises and logical steps that can be followed (or refuted) to determine if
something is true or not.

> _So if I argue it 's no longer subjective?_

No, if someone puts forward an argument, it's by definition not subjective. An
argument is something that can be evaluated.

Maybe you conflate arguments with opinions?

Of course an argument might be based on a subjective selection of premises,
but that's beside the point. One can always refute the argument by pointing to
issues in either its logic or its premises.

