What Seniors Get from Giving Back

Overview

Tang and her colleagues didn’t only look at how the volunteers were helping others; they also evaluated the kind of support volunteers received from the organizations for which they were volunteering. They asked the volunteers the extent to which they were given a choice of volunteer activities, whether they had received adequate training, and whether they received ongoing support.

The researchers then followed up with the volunteers a year later, asking participants about their physical and mental health as well as the “socioemotional benefits” they thought they’d gotten out of volunteering, including their self-esteem, personal growth, and social activity. Tang and her colleagues found that the volunteers reported significant improvements in their mental health, along with other socioemotional benefits ranging from a greater feeling of productivity to increased social activity to an overall sense that their life had improved.

Importantly, the researchers found that volunteers were far more likely to enjoy these benefits when the volunteer organization gave them adequate training, ongoing support, and greater flexibility in choosing activities and schedules. What’s more, the researchers found that volunteers of low socioeconomic status reported more socioemotional benefits than did volunteers of higher socioeconomic status.

Tang and her colleagues argue that, on a society-wide level, their study highlights the importance of offering emotionally meaningful volunteer opportunities for older adults, and for giving these volunteers adequate support and freedom. In this way, older adults are able to find purpose, satisfaction, and good health later in life at the same time that they give back to society.

“With the support from host organizations,” they write, “older volunteers are able to continue their efforts and contributions and derive satisfaction and emotional well-being from their volunteer experience.”

How an older person can start volunteering

1. Pick a cause that matters to them: children's reading, hospital help, an animal shelter, a temple or community kitchen, a neighbourhood library, a senior helpline. 2. Choose a rhythm they can keep: the study above found about six hours a week on average. Two hours is a fine start. 3. Ask for training and a clear role, because support from the organisation made the biggest difference to the benefits. 4. Check the practical side: travel, seating, toilets, shade, and a way to leave early if tired. 5. Review after a month: keep what feels good and change what does not.

If getting out is hard

Phone or video volunteering works: calling other lonely older people, reading to children online, mentoring students or helping with letters and forms. See volunteers, neighbours and community help and loneliness and isolation in older adults.

Staying safe

Meet new groups in public places first, tell a family member where you are going, and never share bank or card details. See preventing scams and doorstep fraud.

When to ask a professional

If a parent has stopped enjoying activities, sleeps badly or seems withdrawn, a doctor should check for depression; see depression in older adults.