Retirement and volunteering in Germany – historical changes and social inequalities

Abstract

Voluntary work has important functions for both society and individuals, in particular in older age. When older adults retire, they have more time available to volunteer, and may be more motivated to do so, to outweigh the loss of the work role. On the other hand, health declines and negative age stereotypes may hinder their engagement. With historical differences in the context of retirement, in societal views on aging and health status of older adults, the role of retirement for volunteering levels may have increased with historical time. However, historical improvements are usually most prominent among higher educated parts of the society. Therefore, new inequalities may develop through increased opportunities for voluntary work and social integration in retirement among higher, but not lower educated individuals. In the present study, we used sub-samples of individuals aged 55 – 75 in five cross-sectional waves (1999, 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019) of the German Survey on Volunteering (Deutscher Freiwilligensurvey: FWS) to investigate how the association of retirement status and volunteering has changed with historical time. We find that whereas in 1999, retirees were less likely to volunteer than those not-retired, this relation has reversed with historical time, with retirees being more likely than non-retirees to volunteer in the latest wave. This effect seems to be merely driven by lower educated individuals. Our results highlight the need to consider historical change when investigating predictors of post-retirement activities and volunteering.

When You’re Down and Out: Who Benefits from Volunteering in Old Age?

“…Although trajectories of volunteering across the retirement transition appear stable and contingent upon previous volunteering experiences (Erlinghagen, 2010;Henning, Arriagada, et al, 2022;Mutchler et al, 2003), retirement might be an event that leads individuals to transition into (e.g., due to an increase in free time) or out of (e.g., in work-related organizations) volunteering (Carr et al, 2022;Tang, 2016). In reference to the dynamic resource-based perspective on retirement, increased volunteering in retirement may be seen as an opportunity to compensate for the loss of social (e.g., social integration) and motivational (e.g., a sense of meaning in life) resources, which were available during working life, but might mitigate in retirement (Bjälkebring et al, 2021;Musick & Wilson, 2003).…”

“…Moreover, according to the SOEP data, 30.6% of this study's sample volunteered across measurement occasions (see Table 1). This number corresponds approximately to the percentage of individuals who volunteer in the retirement transition based on data from the German Survey on Volunteering (Henning, Arriagada, et al, 2022).…”

“…Schmälzle et al, 2019). The likelihood of volunteering after entering retirement has increased in recent years (Henning, Arriagada, et al, 2022) and researchers have argued that there are historical differences in retirement adjustment, also driven by policy changes in Running head: VOLUNTEERING AND RETIREMENT ADJUSTMENT 13 the pension system (Henning, Johansson, et al, 2022;Moen, 1996;Pinquart & Schindler, 2007). I used a rough measure of year of retirement (1 = retired before 1991; 2 = retired between 1992 and 2011; 3 = retired after 2011) that distinguishes among three different periods, marked by major reformations (e.g., higher reductions in case of early retirement since 1992; beginning of the gradual increase of the formal retirement age to the age of 67 in 2012) in the German pension system (Brussig et al, 2016).…”