This article develops an empirically grounded definition of social capital. Drawing on the work of Coleman and Putnam and others, the article discusses social capital in terms of participation in networks, reciprocity, trust, social norms, the commons, and social agency. Potential items to measure these elements were developed in an empirical study. A questionnaire containing 68 potential items was administered to approximately 1,200 adults in five Australian communities: two rural communities, two outer metropolitan areas, and one inner-city area of Sydney. The responses were subjected to extensive statistical analysis involving a hierarchical factor analysis, which identified a single general underlying factor and eight orthogonal specific factors, accounting for 49% of the variance. Three of the specific factors identified were community participation, agency, and trust. The five communities differed significantly in terms of the general and specific factors.

This paper presents a review of the available literature on the relationship between volunteering and health among older people. There is consistent evidence that morbidity rates, functional health indices, self reported health and life satisfaction are affected by formal and informal volunteering. Some studies suggest that the benefits of volunteering are reciprocal, in that both those who give and those who receive assistance benefit. The evidence is consistent with the proposal that social capital is generated through volunteering. It is likely that the presence of high levels of social capital supports and maintains the health of older persons, provides informal support in times of sickness and stress and thus enhances quality of life as well as reducing or delaying the onset of illness and death.

The article explores the concept of career as it relates to thirdsector employees. The results of a survey pf third-sector employees in New South Wales, Australia, suggests a distinctive pattern of work orientation involving a preference for work that is both personally challenging and socially meaningful. Pragmatic considerations are also important for women with young children. These and otherfindings suggest that the majority of third-sector employees pursue a career that more closely fits Driver's spiral career model rather than the conventional linear career model. It therefore behooves nonprofit employers to tailor the organizational reward system to the motivational needs of their employees if they hope to maxi-

Memory-work is a social constructionist and feminist research method that was developed in Germany by Frigga Haug and others explicitly to bridge the gap between theory and experience. It provides a way of exploring the process whereby individual women become part of society, and the ways in which women themselves participate in that process of socialization. It is a group method, involving always the collective analysis of individual written memories. It is feminist in being explicitly liberationist in its intent. The use of memory-work as a method in feminist social research has become well established in Australia and New Zealand. Increasingly, its use as a qualitative research method has come to challenge conventional mainstream research practices. However, for feminist researchers too, the method brings with it many fascinating dilemmas and issues of both a theoretical and methodological nature. This article identifies some of those issues.

This article explores a relatively new and little understood phenomenon, that of the Australian Grey Nomads. Every year increasing numbers of older Australians take to the road. This article explores the phenomenon both empirically and theoretically. A grounded approach is used by which the experience is explored from an ethnographic account involving interviews with some 400 travelers, including in-depth taped interviews with 26 traveling groups. The data is analyzed and discussed in terms of "Ulyssean" aging. The Ulyssean lifestyle requires the freedom to pursue personal choice and new, personally risky experience. Issues of health, personal development, and social networks are discussed in relation to the literature on aging. In particular, it is argued that the Grey Nomad phenomenon fundamentally challenges the dominant decline model of aging. It presents a picture instead of these older Australians taking active and very positive control of their lives, regardless of financial and health conditions. In doing so, they are rewriting the dominant social script for aging.