This paper contributes to the debate on whether volunteering influences social cohesion, and argues that issues of race equality should be considered in this discussion. Whilst the German government, like other European states, promotes volunteering as a way of improving social cohesion, discussions on social cohesion in Germany tend not to mention race explicitly, whilst studies on volunteerin...

Does volunteer participation reduce depressive symptoms among older people? Does depression influence whether older people will volunteer? Might nonrandom attrition in a longitudinal study bias the relationship between volunteering and depression? This research addresses these questions with three-wave data from theAmericans' Changing Lives study. Multigroup structural equation models for compl...

OBJECTIVES Although a number of authors have proposed that older volunteers should benefit in terms of better health and well-being, few researchers have examined the issue empirically to see whether this is true. The purpose of this article is to build on this literature by empirically examining the association between volunteering and mortality among older adults. METHODS Using data from a ...

These studies examined how the practice of accounting for one's time-so that work can be billed or charged to specific clients or projects-affects the decision to allocate time to volunteer activities. Using longitudinal data collected from law students transitioning to their first jobs, Study 1 showed that exposure to billing time diminished individuals' willingness to volunteer, even after co...

BACKGROUND Volunteering has been linked to reduced mortality in older adults, but the mechanisms explaining this effect remain unclear. This study investigated whether volunteering is associated with increased survival in participants of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and whether differences in survival are modified by functional disabilities. METHODS A multivariate Cox Proportional...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of motives for volunteering on respondents' mortality risk 4 years later. METHODS Logistic regression analysis was used to examine whether motives for volunteering predicted later mortality risk, above and beyond volunteering itself, in older adults from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Covariates included age, gender, socioeconom...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND Much of the literature to date concerning public attitudes towards people with severe mental illness (SMI) has focused on negative stereotypes and discriminatory behaviour. However, there also exists a tradition of volunteering with these people, implying a more positive attitude. Groups with positive attitudes and behaviours towards people with SMI have received relati...

The present study investigated dispositional variables that underlie informal volunteering, service that occurs outside of any organizational structure. Dispositional variables previously related to formal volunteering, individualism/collectivism and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, were examined along with perceived locus of control. Time spent in informal service was related to collectivism, i...