Brief #5 in the series Perspectives on Productive Aging
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The growing number of boomers reaching retirement
age over the next 20 years offers an
unprecedented chance to tap into a large base of
potential volunteers. It makes good sense to consider
ways to encourage boomers’ volunteerism.
Benefits would accrue to society directly through
the contributions of unpaid work, to older adults
as volunteering improves health and well being,
and potentially to government, as healthier older
adults require fewer health care dollars.
In fact, numerous studies document that
active and engaged older people remain in better
health. For example, a
recent small-scale
experiment shows
that low-income
minority seniors volunteering
in public
elementary schools
outscored their nonparticipating
counterparts
in both physical
strength and cognitive
ability (Fried et al.
2004). Other studies
find older adults who volunteer live longer and
with better physical and mental health than
counterparts who do not volunteer (Lum and
Lightfoot 2005; Murrow-Howell et al. 2003).
Glass and his colleagues (1999) show that productive
activities like volunteering and work can
lower the risk of mortality as much as fitness
activities can.
A better understanding of who is volunteering
today should precede efforts to direct
resources toward supporting volunteerism
among aging boomers. Previous studies, for
example, caution that the retirement of the baby
boom population will not necessarily lead to a
new, willing army of volunteers. Some studies
show that older adults do not volunteer more in
retirement than while working. Rather, those
who volunteer during their working years tend
to volunteer during retirement (Harvard School
of Public Health 2004). Other literature documents
that personal characteristics such as religion
and education are associated with higher
rates of volunteerism (Kutner and Love 2003).
This Perspective uses data from the 2002
Health and Retirement Study to examine volunteerism
among adults age 55 and older.1 Formal
volunteering is defined as volunteering for an
organization; and informal volunteering, as time
spent helping others not in the household. The
relationships between demographic and economic
characteristics are also explored for these
two types of volunteerism.
The results provide
new insights
into volunteering
among older
adults. Contrary to
some prior studies,
we find that nonworking
adults
engage in formal
volunteer activities
somewhat more
often than full-time
workers, accounting
for other characteristics that affect volunteering.
Men volunteer informally more often than
women, once differences in work status, education,
and health between the sexes are taken into
account. Results also con-firm other studies
showing that adults who assign high importance
to religion, those with higher incomes and more
education, and those in good health volunteer more often than their counterparts. Further,
Hispanics volunteer less often than either whites
or African Americans. As discussed, these insights
could help shape initiatives to increase
volunteerism among older adults.
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Disclaimer: The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
