Dynamics of volunteering in older Europeans.

PURPOSE To investigate the dynamics of volunteering in the population aged 50 years or older across 11 Continental European countries. DESIGN AND METHODS Using longitudinal data from the first 2 waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we run multivariate regressions on a set of binary-dependent variables indicating transitions from active volunteering to inactivity and vice versa. RESULTS Volunteer transitions were affected by both time-invariant individual resources and changes in individuals' resources. Moreover, we found that the societal context in which older persons live not only has a significant impact on the prevalence of volunteering at a given point in time but that the dynamics of volunteering also vary by country. IMPLICATIONS Our study supports the notion of volunteering as an important productive aging activity and underlines the importance of both life-course and social context factors as determinants of volunteer dynamics at older ages.