Receptivity to Volunteering in the Immediate Postretirement Period

Abstract

Higher rates of volunteering might be expected of elders in the period immediately after retirement because they tend to be in relatively good health and have fewer competing obligations. Data from the Commonwealth Productive Aging Survey, a telephone survey of a representative national sample of 2,999 people 55 years of age and older, confirmed findings of previous research that retirement is not associated with higher rates of volunteering. However, in the first and second years following termination of employment, nonvolunteers show a heightened receptivity to volunteering; that is, they indicate more willingness to take on volunteer assignments and an ability to do so than do elders who are employed or who have been out of the workforce for longer periods. The findings suggest that volunteer coordinators should focus volunteer recruiting efforts on elders who are about to leave jobs or who have recently left jobs.Leaders of a variety of nonprofit organizations have become increasingly interested in enlisting older people as volunteers to help meet their urgent human resource needs (Fischer & Schaffer, 1993). The attractiveness of having older people as volunteers stems in part from the growth in numbers of older people who are not working and who are in good health. For most older people, employment is no longer an obstacle to making major time commitments as volunteers because only a minority are employed. In 1994, among those 60 to 64 years of age, 44.5% were employed; among those 65 to 69 years of age, 21.4% were employed; and among those 70 to 74 years of age, 11.3% were employed (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1994). On a variety of measures, the health of those younger than 75 years of age is generally good. Only about 11 % of those 65 to 74 years of age, for example, report that chronic illness prevents them from carrying out their usual responsibilities (Taeuber, 1990).

Post-retirement voluntary work and psychological functioning among older Chinese in Hong Kong

“…The present study showed that compared to older Chinese non-volunteers, volunteers reported higher levels of self-efficacy and better physical health. These findings are consistent with previous research that documents older volunteers tend to perceive themselves as physically healthy and competent in coping with new and challenging experiences (Caro & Bass, 1997;Choi, 2003;Fisher et al, 1991;Kincade et al, 1996;Warburton et al, 1998;Van Willingen, 2000). As discussed in the association between older volunteerism and psychological well-being, individual psychosocial differences between older volunteers and non-volunteers can be understood in light of both enhancement and healthy worker effects.…”

“…Compared to older non-volunteers, older volunteers tend to perceive themselves as having better physical health (Caro & Bass, 1997;Choi, 2003;Fischer et al, 1991;Kincade et al, 1996;Warburton, Le-Brocque, & Rosenman, 1998;Van Willingen, 2000). It is possible that retirees with poor physical health will have less mobility, ability, and time to provide voluntary services, especially among those with medical conditions that require regular follow-up visits to doctors (Schneider, 1999).…”

Engaging Older Adults in High Impact Volunteering that Enhances Health: Recruitment and Retention in the Experience Corps® Baltimore

“…7,8 In general, volunteers in service programs in the U.S. have typically been white, female, highly educated, and with high incomes 17 or have been recruited through religious organizations. 3,18 Moreover, volunteers in community-based research programs tend to be healthier, younger, better educated, female, use fewer human services than non-volunteers, [18][19][20] and have higher cognitive function than randomly selected samples. 19 At the same time, we know that population subsets with lower rates of volunteering are subject to greater health disparities, have greater unmet health promotion needs, and may have fewer volunteering opportunities.…”

Volunteering and life or financial shocks: does income and wealth matter?

“…It also produces a feeling of competence (Okun et al, 1998). In fact, there is evidence that the number of volunteer hours increases after retirement and that retired people are more receptive to volunteering in the period immediately after retirement (Caro and Bass, 1997).…”

“…Retired people have become an attractive pool for volunteering because of rising life expectancy (Sherman and Shavit, 2012) and the growing number of seniors in good health (Caro and Bass, 1997) who are keen to be active (see Fischer et al, 1991) or productive in the community (Freedman, 1997). Obviously, retirement substantially increases the time available for other activities, and volunteering can fill an important gap for older people by reproducing the benefits of work through voluntary participation (Sherman and Shavit, 2012).…”