1.
Dan Jones, Director of Innovation & Change
Community Contributions in Later Life – What
do we know?

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Making a valued contribution to my community
- Unpaid altruistic activities beyond the immediate family
- Formal volunteering or civic contributions
- Less formal/self-organised voluntary activity
- Everyday acts of neighbourliness and helping out
- Our interest is how these activities contribute to a better later life
- Significant body of evidence on formal volunteering in older adults – both
benefits and drivers
- Much less evidence on informal contributions

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Making a contribution – benefits
-Strong evidence that making a contribution (formal or informal)
increases quantity and quality of social connections
-Consistent evidence that good quality formal volunteering leads to
wellbeing and life satisfaction benefits for older adults
-These are real but limited benefits – “we should not expect
miracles from participation”
-Consistent association between volunteering and health, but
evidence does not support a causal connection
-Some evidence that volunteering can help people over 50 back into
employment, but relationship is not straightforward
1. Nazroo, J. and Matthews, K. (2012) The impact of volunteering on well-being in later life, London: WRVS
2. De Wit, A., Bekkers, R., Karamat Ali, D., and Verkaik, D. (2015) Welfare impacts of participation: report for Impact of Third Sector as Social
Innovation project, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research
2

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The benefits of contributing – wellbeing
Social connections
Structure and purpose
Feedback and validation
Wellbeing
Life Satisfaction
Quality of Life
Mental Health
Reciprocity
Access to mutual /
peer support Self Management

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Making a contribution – who benefits?
Structure and purpose
Social connections
Wellbeing
People with lower
levels of income or
education
People with mild /
moderate mental
health problems
People with incipient /
low level unmet
household care needs
Reciprocity and mutual
support
See e.g. Principi, A., Schippers, J., Naegele, G., Di Rosa, M.
and Lamura, G. (2016) Understanding the link between older
volunteers’ resources and motivation to volunteer,
Educational Gerontology, 42 (2)

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Making a contribution – who contributes?
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
16-49 50-64 65-74 75+
Formal volunteering Informal volunteering
Community Life Survey
- Age is not a significant determinant of making a contribution
Proportion of people making frequent contributions by age, 2014-15

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0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Poor Fair Good Very good Excellent
Making a contribution – who contributes?
Nazroo, J. and Matthews, K. (2012) The impact of volunteering on well-being in later life, London: WRVS
- Health, socioeconomic status and ethnicity are much more strongly correlated to
volunteering than age
Proportion of people aged 50+ involved in formal volunteering by health status, 2006-
10

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Making a contribution – who contributes?
- But some evidence that informal help is not correlated with socioeconomic status
(e.g. SHARE)
Proportion of people aged 50+ involved in formal volunteering by wealth, 2006-10
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Poorest Second quintile Third quintile Fourth quintile Richest

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Work and volunteering in later life
-Retirement – cohort data doesn’t support the idea that people
are more likely to take up volunteering after retirement (except
for higher status workers)
-Work – US data suggests that staying in work or maintaining
work-related social networks is associated with higher levels of
volunteering
1. Lancee, B. and Radl, J. (2014) Volunteering over the life course, Social Forces, 93 (2)
2. Lengfeld, H. and Ordemann (2016) The long shadow of occupation: volunteering in retirement, Rationality and Society, 28 (1)
3. Tang, F. (2015) Retirement Patterns and Their Relationship to Volunteering, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
1, 2

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Why do people volunteer?
Support Systems
• Advertising / recruitment
• Matching
• Training & support
• Flexibility & fit
• Feedback & value
• Prior experience or
association
• Rich social networks
• Neighbourhood
satisfaction
• Religious participation
• Socioeconomic
status / income
• Health status
• Education
Motivation
Capability
Opportunities
Social and community norms
Institutional, policy and legal framework
Resources and infrastructure – financial and physical

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Barriers to volunteering in later life – individual
-Absence of motivating factors – “I’ve never thought about it”
“I don’t want to”
-Limited capability – “I can’t”

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Barriers to volunteering in later life – individual
-Ageism and discrimination – “it’s not for me”
-Social and community norms and networks – “I don’t know
anyone who does it”
-Lack of suitable opportunities and support – lack of flexibility or
things that people want to do

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Volunteering in later life – myths
The evidence suggests that some commonly cited factors are not
straightforwardly correlated to likelihood of participation:
-Time – people make time for the things they want to do
-Caring – including care

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Making a contribution – what don’t we know?
-Informal contributions
-New forms of contribution (e.g. micro-volunteering, impact
volunteering, digital, timebanking, peer-led, social enterprises)
-Under-represented groups (e.g. black and minority ethnic groups)
-“Under-benefiting” groups (e.g. people with limited social capital,
people with life-limiting conditions)

15.
Centre for Ageing Better
Angel Building, Level 3
407 St John Street, London, EC1V 4AD
020 3829 0113
www.ageing-better.org.uk
Registered Company Number: 8838490 & Charity Registration Number: 1160741