George ILIEV
(Photo: Elderly man, Wikipedia)
With age, neurobiological and psychological processes make us less interested in novelty and lead us to stick to what we know. (Scientific American, March 2013). "Old people do not need to remember as much new material as the young do because they are already familiar with so much of what they experience."
Professionally, this natural phenomenon is correlated with, and possibly driving, job specialisation: As we get older, we become more comfortable with our professional field and less comfortable with new fields. Experience builds on this trend and creates "the expert".
Specialisation pays off with higher income though it also entails higher risk of job redundancy. Last but not least comes the comical danger of overspecialisation: "knowing more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing”.
