Cognitive Aging Through a Life Course Lens: The Roles of Childhood Socioeconomic Status, Adult Education, and Aging Self-Perceptions in Older Women

Women face a disproportionately higher lifetime risk of age-related cognitive decline and
Alzheimer’s disease, yet the psychosocial mechanisms underlying these disparities are poorly
understood. Guided by a life-course framework, this study examined how childhood
socioeconomic status and adult education jointly relate to later-life cognitive function among
women, and whether self-perceptions of aging (SPA) moderates these associations. Data from
851 women in the Health and Retirement Study who completed psychosocial measures in the
2010 wave and cognitive measures in the 2014 wave were analyzed with moderated-mediation
models (PROCESS Model 15), adjusting for age, race, self-rated health, depressive symptoms,
and survey weights. Higher cSES predicted more years of adult education and greater adult
education predicted better cognitive performance. The indirect effect of cSES on cognition
through education was significant, but the direct effect was not, indicating full mediation.
Neither cSES × SPA nor education × SPA interactions reached significance. Findings replicated
and extended earlier work, as adult education fully mediated the link between cSES and later-life
cognition in women, while also revealing that SPA did not moderate this relationship. Results
emphasize the role of educational opportunities in translating cSES into cognitive health decades
later, suggesting that policies aimed at expanding adult education may help mitigate women’s
risk for cognitive decline.