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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Differential benefits of volunteering across the life course | | Author(s) | Marieke Van Willigen |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 55B, no 5, September 2000 |
| Pages | pp S308-S318 |
| Keywords | Voluntary work [elderly] ; Voluntary workers ; Adults ; Life satisfaction ; Health [elderly] ; Life span ; Comparison ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Studies often fail to adequately test the causal relationship between volunteering and well-being. Yet the media and empirical research have focused attention on the impact of volunteering on older people's well-being. This study asks two questions. First, does volunteering improve older people's psychological and physical well-being? Second, do older volunteers experience different benefits to those of younger adults? Using data from the Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) survey, the author assessed the long-term impact of volunteering on the life satisfaction and perceived health of over 60s, and then compared these results with those for younger adults. Older volunteers were found to have experienced greater increases in life satisfaction over time as the result of their volunteer hours than did younger volunteers, especially at high rates of volunteering. Older people also experienced greater positive changes in their perceived health than did younger volunteers. The type of volunteer work may be part of the reason for these different effects. The context for and meaning of volunteering are more likely explanations. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-001123216 A |
| Classmark | GHH: QV: SD: F:5HH: CC: BG6: 48: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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