Human, social and cultural predictors of productive activities in later life

Abstract

While considerable scholarly attention has been given to factors influencing productive activity, less is known about how multiple forms of resources predict the maintenance or initiation of such activity over time. Using two-wave panel data of older adults from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), the study investigated the relationship between measures of capital and changes in multiple types of productive activity. Findings showed that all three types of capital were associated with volunteering in cross-sectional analyses, but only education, neighbourhood socialisation and religious service attendance remain significant predictors of continued volunteerism. Human capital strongly influenced employment both cross-sectionally and over time. Aspects of social capital – marital status and network size – were linked to participation and initiation of care-giving activities. The findings demonstrate that different patterns emerge in cross-sectional and two-wave panel data of multiple productive activities, adjusting for baseline activity level and selective attrition. The project also suggests factors that promote or hinder continued engagement in productive activity.

Active ageing in Europe: are changes in social capital associated with engagement, initiation and maintenance of activity in later life?

“…These results seem to confirm that, also in later life, participation in care-giving and paid work needs to be explored as part of the household needs and labour allocation. Last, receiving the support needed seems to favour activity in later life and the initiation of new activities, and this might relate, as other studies show (Kim, 2020), to the fact that benefiting from help stimulates reciprocity. Of course, when older people receive support very often, the relation between support received and activity is negative, as needing help very often might indicate a disadvantaged condition (concerning health or material resources, among others) that prevents participation (as also speculated by Reinhardt et al, 2006).…”

“…In particular, the author shows that older adults with greater SC are generally more engaged in the different activities (even though the relation between SC and activity is not apparent over the five-year period considered). Moreover, Kim (2020) highlights that married people are more likely to participate in care-giving and that the size of their networks is positively associated with the initiation of care-giving. Concerning participation in volunteering, the author shows that older adults with greater bridging SC are more likely to be recruited for volunteering and to continue to volunteer over time.…”

“…The explanatory variables are SC and changes in SC. Drawing on Kim (2020), SC is operationalised by network size, social support received and presence of a partner with/without limitations in activities of daily living (ADL). We operationalise network size as the number of contacts in the respondents' SNs (0-7).…”

Volunteering as an Equalizer: A Quasi-Experimental Study Using Propensity Score Analysis

“…20 Because consensus is forming around the strategy to include only pretreatment variables that are associated with the treatment condition, this strategy was followed 17,21 and only included sociodemographic factors (age, sex, race, ethnicity, and labor status) as well as measures of human (education, self-reported health, and mental health), social (marital status and informally helping), and financial (total household wealth and income) capital, all of which are associated with later-life formal volunteering. 2,22,23 The inverse of the propensity scores was used to create the propensity score weights (i.e., IPTW).…”

Productive engagement of older adults in China: A multilevel analysis

“…13 Past studies have shown positive effects of social participation on engagement in paid jobs. 10,14 Older adults help their adult children in household chores and grand-parenting. 6,11 Some older adults require a paid job to support themselves.…”