Why are the oldest old less generous? Explanations for the unexpected age-related drop in charitable giving

Wiepking, Pamala; James, Russell N.

doi:10.1017/s0144686x12000062

Cited by 29 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(71 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, Hrung (2004) finds that giving shifts toward religious causes as people age. That said, other studies which focus on total charitable giving have found agerelated decreases that are qualitatively similar to the ones in our data (Wiepking and James, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Illness can also affect people's cognitive abilities, a potentially important consideration given the evidence in the psychology literature of a positive relationship between cognitive skills and the ability to empathize with other people (Wiepking and James, 2012, p. 6). Wiepking and James (2012) examine these various explanations for the decline in giving among the very old in a regression framework using data from the Health and Retirement Study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Donative Behavior at the End of Life

Meer

Rosen

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A general finding in the empirical literature on charitable giving is that among older individuals, both the probability of giving and the conditional amount of donations decrease with age, ceteris paribus. In this paper, we use data on giving by alumni at an anonymous university to investigate end-of-life giving patterns. Our main finding is that taking into account the approach of death substantially changes the age-giving profile for the elderly-in one segment of the age distribution, the independent effect of an increase in age on giving actually changes from negative to positive.We examine how the decline in giving as death approaches varies with the length of time that a given condition is likely to bring about death, and the individual's age when he died. We find that for individuals who died from conditions that bring about death fairly quickly, there is little decline in giving as death approaches compared to those who died from other causes. Further, the decline in giving as death approaches is steeper for the elderly (for whom death is less likely to be a surprise) than for the relatively young. These findings suggest that our primary result, that failing to take into account the approach of death leads to biased inferences with respect to the age-giving profile, is not merely an artifact of some kind of nonlinearity in the relationship between age and giving.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Donative Behavior at the End of Life

Meer

Rosen

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…People of older age are typically more generous donors. The main reason for this trend is the life cycle effect: older people typically have more financial resources, accumulated over their life (Wiepking & James, 2013). Havens and Schervish (2003) argue that the nonprofit sectors of Western societies can expect an influx of donations with the large 'baby boomer' cohort (born between 1946 and 1955) reaching pensioning age.…”

Section: Population Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy

Wiepking¹,

Handy²

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Broadly speaking, donors are more likely to be female, older, married, religious, educated, and wealthy (Bègue, 2014;Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011c;Brooks, 2003b;Choi & DiNitto, 2012;Forbes & Zampelli, 2013;Helms & Thornton, 2012;Herzog & Yang, 2018;Hughes & Luksetich, 2008;Korndörfer, Egloff, & Schmukle, 2015;Leslie, Snyder, & Glomb, 2013;Manesi, Van Lange, Van Doesum, & Pollet, 2018;McGregor-Lowndes & Crittall, 2014;Mesch, Brown, Moore, & Hayat, 2011;Mesch, Osili, Ackerman, & Dale, 2015a;Mesch, Rooney, Steinberg, & Denton, 2006;Midlarsky & Hannah, 1989;Neumayr & Handy, 2017;Rajan, Pink, & Dow, 2009;Rooney, Mesch, Chin, & Steinberg, 2005;Sibley & Bulbulia, 2015;Stavrova & Siegers, 2014;L. Steinberg & Monahan, 2007;Tremblay-Boire & Prakash, 2017;Vaidyanathan, Hill, & Smith, 2011;Wiepking & Bekkers, 2012;Wiepking, Bekkers, & Osili, 2014;Wiepking & James, 2013;Wiepking & Maas, 2009).…”

Section: Who Gives To Charity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Age. As people age, they are more likely to give to charity (Bègue, 2014;Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011c;Herzog & Yang, 2018;McGregor-Lowndes & Crittall, 2014;Mesch et al, 2006;Midlarsky & Hannah, 1989;Neumayr & Handy, 2017;Rajan et al, 2009;Sibley & Bulbulia, 2015;Wiepking & James, 2013), though age is not always a significant predictor of being a donor (Tremblay-Boire & Prakash, 2017). In addition, research has found both that older donors give more on average (Bennett, 2003; and that younger donors do (Midlarsky & Hannah, 1989, Study 1).…”

Section: Demographicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a triadic understanding of charitable giving: how donors, beneficiaries, fundraisers, and social contexts influence donation decisions

Chapman¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This thesis applies social psychological theories about intergroup relations (e.g., Social Identity Theory, Tajfel, 1981; the Intergroup Helping Relations as Status Relations model, Nadler, 2002) to investigate the process and outcomes of charitable giving. Moving beyond the traditional focus on studying donors, this thesis uses a mixed-methods approach (surveys, experiments, thematic analysis, and literature review) to show that charitable giving is triadic, relational, and contextualized. That is, decisions about donations are informed by a triad of actors (donors, beneficiaries, and fundraisers), the relationships between them, and the wider social context. Chapter 1 provides a general overview of previous scholarly work on charitable giving and key psychological theories identified as relevant to my approach. Findings from Chapters 2 and 3 confirm that beneficiaries affect donor choices and that the relationships (e.g., shared identities) between particular donors and particular beneficiaries are especially important. Chapter 2 comprises two surveys of confirmed (N = 675) and self-reported (N = 376) donors, which show that donors are not universally generous. Instead, consistent with the social identity approach (Tajfel, 1981; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherell, 1987), donors prefer to support charities that align with their social groups in meaningful ways. Chapter 3 goes on to present thematic analyses of responses to the question of why donors support their favorite charity (N = 1,849 from 117 countries). Results show a self/other dichotomy in donor motivation: donors are more likely to reference the self when explaining giving to religious and research charities, but are more likely to reference the other (i.e., beneficiary) when explaining giving to social service, animal, or international charities. In combination, Chapters 4 and 5 demonstrate that social contexts affect charitable responses, in part by changing the perceived relations between donors and beneficiaries. Chapter 4 presents one survey (N = 189) and one experiment (N = 290) that show how government policy on foreign aid affects private giving by changing perceptions of national giving norms. Chapter 5 presents two experiments (combined N = 440) that demonstrate how political advocacy can affect charitable giving by changing donor emotions, perceptions of efficacy, and identification with beneficiaries. Chapter 6 highlights the importance of also considering fundraisers when studying charitable giving. Mediation analyses from two samples of peer-to-peer fundraisers (combined N = 1,647) show that when fundraisers identify more with their nominated charity they take more actions to raise money and that, in turn, results in more funds raised. In particular, results show that actions which make the fundraiser more salient (e.g., adding photos, sharing personal motivations) are most effective. Chapter 7 draws together evidence from my program of research and more than 300 articles from the interdisciplinary literature to generate a new mode...

show abstract

Why are the oldest old less generous? Explanations for the unexpected age-related drop in charitable giving

Cited by 29 publications

References 57 publications

Donative Behavior at the End of Life

Donative Behavior at the End of Life

The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy

Toward a triadic understanding of charitable giving: how donors, beneficiaries, fundraisers, and social contexts influence donation decisions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About