Trends in Volunteering
3.3 Age discrimination and volunteering Volunteering by older people benefits both the individual and the organisation to which they offer their services. For the older person, voluntary work can:
Help maintain a sense of purpose and self-respect, particularly for those who have retired from paid work;
Lessen the isolation felt by those cut off from social networks in the workplace and from their families; and
Have beneficial effects on physical and mental health. For the organisation, older volunteers bring:
Maturity and experience gained from both inside and outside the workplace; Skills built up through many years of life and work; Availability – as older people usually have more time to spare and are more flexible in terms of when they work; and
Loyalty – research shows that older people contribute more hours than any other age group, are more likely to be content with their voluntary work and to stick with it. On the face of it, older people would appear ideal candidates for volunteer work, particularly at a time when they are living longer and healthier lives. Indeed, people over the age of 65 have bucked the overall downward trend in volunteering. Despite a positive increasing trend in the rate of volunteers, older people are still under-represented in volunteering compared with people in their thirties or forties. A previous survey, Issues in Volunteer Management (http://www.ivr.org.uk/ researchbulletins/bulletins/issues-in-volunteer-management-a-report-of-asurvey-.htm), carried out in 1998 found that 19% of organisations had upper age limits for volunteers. Of the 61% of organisations that responded to a new survey, 60% still claimed to have a fixed retirement age. This seemingly dramatic decline since 1998 may represent a real change in policy among a number of organisations but it may also reflect reluctance on the part of organisations to discuss what may be a sensitive issue. It is clear that a significant minority of volunteer-involving organisations operate an upper-age-limit policy. Such policies actively discriminate against people on the grounds of age and are a waste of potential talent.
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