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Content: While people with low socioeconomic status tend to have worse cognitive functioning, little is known about the impact of specific socioeconomic conditions. Aim of the present analysis was to investigate to what extent cognitive functioning differs by three socioeconomic conditions: low income, being without employment, and living alone. Participants (N=158,144, age 19–75 years) of the population-based German National Cohort (NAKO) were analyzed. Results from multivariable regression model including the three socioeconomic conditions, age, sex, education, occupational status, having diabetes, hypertension, myocardial infarction, stroke, and depressive symptoms indicated that cognitive functioning was lower in those with low income compared to not having low income, living alone compared to not living alone, and being without employment compared to being employed. An interaction with age indicated that the difference in cognitive functioning was getting larger with age between the income groups and living alone status groups. Accordingly, low income, being without employment, and living alone appear independently associated with poorer cognitive functioning after adjusting for important confounders such as educational and occupational status. As those with low income had the poorest cognitive functioning in old age, it is important to explore how cognitive health in this population group can be improved.

Competing interests: None