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Productive activity clusters among middle-aged and older adults
 — intersecting forms and time commitments
Author(s)Jeffrey A Burr, Jan E Mutchler, Francis G Caro
Journal titleJournals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 62B, no 4, July 2007
Pagespp S267-S275
Sourcehttp://www.geron.org
KeywordsVoluntary work [elderly] ; Employment of older people ; Housework ; Informal care ; Middle aged ; Age groups [elderly] ; Cluster analysis ; United States of America.
AnnotationWhereas most researchers have examined forms of productive activity as discrete behaviours, the approach in this study was to capture the reality that many people engage in more than one activity and commit varying degrees of time to these activities. Data for this study is from the Americans Changing Lives survey. The activities examined include formal volunteer work, informal help to others, unpaid domestic work, caregiving, and paid work. The authors describe the complex clusters of activities and time commitment to those activities using latent class cluster analysis. Their findings showed that middle-aged and older people fall into four clusters: helpers, home maintainers, worker/volunteers, and super helpers. They also show how individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender, race) are associated with the likelihood of being in one of these four groups. This measurement strategy provides a foundation for future research into how experts can employ productive activity clusters to have a better understanding of well-being across the life course. This is important, because these results show that many activities do not occur independently, but rather are linked in patterned ways. (RH).
Accession NumberCPA-080305223 A
ClassmarkGHH: GC: GH6: P6: SE: BB: 3YB: 7T

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