Chapter 25 discussed the psychosocial development in late adulthood. One section of the text discussed volunteer work among adults. Although volunteering is not paid, it offers benefits to the individual, such as generativity, social connections and better health. Society also benefits from volunteers. A cross sectional research found that there is a strong connection between good health and people who volunteer. Volunteering aides in a person's well-being. Self theory would predict that volunteer work attracts older people who are strongly committed to their community, especially those who have volunteered earlier in adulthood. This prediction was found to be false. Studies found that older, retired individuals are less likely to volunteer than middle-aged employed people. By looking at the bar graph on page 703 of our textbook, there is a bell curve on the ages of people who volunteer (Berger 2011). Adults between the ages of 35-54 have the highest volunteer rates while adults over the age of 65 have the lowest volunteer rates.
I found these findings to be interesting. When I retire, I think I'm going to volunteer. What else do elderly people do after they retire? I know when I retire, I will have too much free time and would love to do volunteer work to help people. I am planning on being a physical therapist. In order to get into grad school, I needed volunteer hours so I worked as a volunteer at a hospital. I took patients back and forth from their room to the physical therapy gym. As a retired physical therapist, I would love to volunteer again, even if it is forty years from now. I'm surprised at how many elderly people don't volunteer.
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