Decades of financial hardship were associated with poorer cognition and brain health later in life.
Years of persistent financial strain may leave measurable effects on cognitive performance by middle age and on brain health decades later. Research led by University College London (UCL) linked long-lasting money problems with poorer cognitive outcomes, rather than treating financial hardship as a temporary event.
Published in Innovation in Aging, the study examined lifelong questionnaire data from 2,759 UK adults participating in the MRC National Survey of Health and Development (also known as the 1946 British cohort study).
People who faced continuing money difficulties or remained on a low income through early and middle adulthood generally scored lower on cognitive tests at age 53.
Among participants who later received brain scans, persistent low income was also associated with poorer brain health between ages 69 and 71, including greater brain shrinkage.
The relationships remained after the researchers accounted for other factors that could influence the results, including childhood cognitive ability, educational attainment and childhood disadvantage.
Accumulated hardship matters most
Corresponding author Dr. Jacques Wels (Unit for Lifelong Health & Aging at UCL) said: “Most studies on cognitive aging look at financial hardship at only a single point in time. Our study using several decades of data allows us to see that it is the accumulation of hardship over many years that is linked to the worst cognitive health outcomes, rather than occasional episodes of adversity.”
Senior author Professor Praveetha Patalay (Unit for Lifelong Health & Aging and Center for Longitudinal Studies, UCL) said: “Our findings suggest that supporting people facing financial hardship and reducing chronic poverty could also help prevent cognitive decline and dementia cases in the future.”
Some groups faced stronger associations
The relationship between financial adversity and poorer brain health later in life was especially pronounced among men, participants who experienced childhood disadvantage and people carrying APOE-ε4, a genetic variant associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Men exposed to persistent financial hardship also performed worse on cognitive tests at age 53 than women with similar experiences. The researchers suggested several possible explanations, including higher rates of unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and alcohol misuse among disadvantaged men, as well as greater stress related to financial pressure because men in this cohort, born in 1946, were more likely to have been their household’s primary earners.
Stress may accelerate brain aging
Several pathways could help explain the association between financial hardship and cognitive aging. One is inflammation, which can be triggered by chronic stress and is known to contribute to faster brain aging.
Repeated concern about money may also increase cognitive load, consuming mental resources that would otherwise be available for other tasks.
The researchers also found an unexpected pattern. Although participants who experienced financial hardship or low income performed worse on cognitive tests at age 53, their memory scores declined more slowly between ages 53 and 69. One likely explanation is that they had already experienced substantial cognitive losses by the earlier assessment compared with people who had not endured persistent financial strain.
Decades of data track financial strain
Participants reported their household income at ages 26, 43 and 53. They were classified as having persistent low income when they fell within the lowest 20% of the cohort at least twice, a group that included 16% of participants, or about one in six.
Financial hardship was measured with questions about whether participants struggled to live on their income or had difficulty paying bills. Those who exceeded a set hardship threshold at least twice between ages 36 and 53 were categorized as experiencing persistent hardship. This applied to 12% of the participants, or about one in eight.
Cognitive testing measured verbal memory and processing speed. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allowed the researchers to examine indicators of brain health, including brain atrophy (shrinkage) and ventricular expansion, which is the enlargement of fluid-filled spaces within the brain.
Hosted by UCL, the 1946 British cohort study is the world’s longest continuously running birth cohort study. Its participants, who entered the research at birth, celebrated their 80th birthday earlier this year.
Reference: “Persistent financial adversity and cognitive aging: a life course investigation” by Yiwen Liu, Jacques Wels, Sarah-Naomi James, Sarah E Keuss, Jane Maddock, Thomas D Parker, Jean Stafford, Jonathan M Schott, Marcus Richards and Praveetha Patalay, 23 July 2026, Innovation in Aging.
DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igag054
This study is funded by the UK Medical Research Council, which provides core funding for the NSHD (MC_UU_00019/1 and MC_UU_00019/3).
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