Does Civic Participation Promote Active Aging in Europe?

Civic Participation as a Promoter of Well-Being: Comparative Analysis among European Countries

“…Previous research with the same database (Vega-Tinoco et al, 2021) has found empirical evidence on the bidirectional relationship between civic participation and the well-being of the elderly in Europe, but also that the effect of civic participation on well-being is greater than vice versa. Once the direction of the relationship between these variables has been confirmed (for further details please see Vega-Tinoco et al, 2021), the main objective of the current work is to study the international differences between European welfare systems. For this purpose, we have employed multilevel regression analysis using data from the European Social Survey (ESS 2002(ESS -2018.…”

“…Civic participation has a positive impact on the well-being of the elder European population. By means of a pseudo-panel, previous research (Vega-Tinoco et al, 2021) has evidenced that, although there is a bidirectional relationship between civic participation and well-being, the impact that past participation has on present health and happiness is stronger than vice-versa. Accordingly, among the well-being indicators, the following 3 stand out: health, happiness and life satisfaction, which have been considered in the present study as dependent variables (Helliwell & Putnam, 2004;WHO, 2002;Petretto et al, 2016;Vander-Weele et al, 2020).…”

“…Likewise, given that these types of activities are positively correlated with quality of life (Haski-Leventhal, 2009;Morawski et al, 2020;Vega-Tinoco et al, 2021) it could also be expected that the impact of volunteering would be higher in those countries with higher rates of participation. However, in the study by Morawski et al, (2020) the relationship between volunteering and the economic development of a country has an inverted U-shape, so that the correlation between volunteering and quality of life is weak in those countries with the highest (Denmark, Switzerland, and Belgium) and lowest (Poland, Greece, the Czech Republic, and Spain) rates of volunteering, while the correlation is strong in countries with medium levels of volunteering (Austria, Italy, and Israel).…”

“…One of the limitations of this study is the cross-sectional nature of the data collected from the European Social Survey, such that when we refer to the relationship between civic participation and well-being, we do not claim causality. However, this shortcoming is mitigated by the fact that the present study is grounded upon earlier research, where the directionality of the relationships was analyzed by means of a pseudo-panel (Vega-Tinoco et al, 2021).…”

Are you ready for retirement? The influence of values on membership in voluntary organizations in midlife and old age

“…Regarding the second, being a member of a voluntary organization provides numerous benefits for the volunteer and for the society ( Dekker and Feenstra, 2015 ; Li and Wu, 2019 ; Lam et al, 2021 ). In the case of older people, at the individual level, it improves the health, life satisfaction, and happiness ( Burr et al, 2021 ; Vega-Tinoco et al, 2021 ; de Wit et al, 2022 ). At the national level, it fosters social solidarity and active aging ( Gil-Lacruz M. et al, 2019 ), which facilitate the sustainability of pension and healthcare systems ( Galenkamp and Deeg, 2016 ), besides generating economic benefits, for example, increasing the levels of Gross Domestic Product ( Salamon et al, 2003 ; Gil-Lacruz and Marcuello, 2013 ).…”