Social Support And Volunteer Participation Among Older Adults

Population aging is an important social problem over the world.With the extension of life expectancy,more and more old people still stay healthy,they can be engaged in volunteer service or learn new knowledge and skills so as to participate in society.In the context of active aging,volunteer participation among older adults has become an important issue.The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between social support and volunteer participation among older adults.Using empirical analysis and taking Shipai subdistrict(in Tianhe district Guangzhou city)for example,the study has sent out 350 questionnaires altogether and retrieved 316.With the analysis of interview transcriptions and descriptive statistics analysis,correlation analysis,binary logistic regression analysis and variance analysis through SPSS18.0,the study comes up with the following conclusions:1.Social support has a significant impact on volunteer participation,that is to say,people with higher level of social support are more likely to engage in volunteer activities.2.Age,physical health and volunteer experience also have a significant effect on volunteer participation.The young old is more likely to participate in volunteer service,so as the healthier old adults.In addition,volunteer experience has significant positive influence on both formal and informal volunteering participation.To promote older adult's volunteerism,it's suggested that we need to change the attitudes of old adults as well as their participation in volunteering and create healthy social atmosphere;encourage more healthy young elderly to participate in volunteer activities;optimize the management of volunteer service and volunteer;improve their social support and reinforce publicity for volunteering.