The Benefits Associated With Volunteering Among Seniors: A Critical Review and Recommendations for Future Research

Abstract

There is an urgent need to identify lifestyle activities that reduce functional decline and dementia associated with population aging. The goals of this article are to review critically the evidence on the benefits associated with formal volunteering among older adults, propose a theoretical model of how volunteering may reduce functional limitations and dementia risk, and offer recommendations for future research. Database searches identified 113 papers on volunteering benefits in older adults, of which 73 were included. Data from descriptive, cross-sectional, and prospective cohort studies, along with 1 randomized controlled trial, most consistently reveal that volunteering is associated with reduced symptoms of depression, better self-reported health, fewer functional limitations, and lower mortality. The extant evidence provides the basis for a model proposing that volunteering increases social, physical, and cognitive activity (to varying degrees depending on characteristics of the volunteer placement) which, through biological and psychological mechanisms, leads to improved functioning; we further propose that these volunteering-related functional improvements should be associated with reduced dementia risk. Recommendations for future research are that studies (a) include more objective measures of psychosocial, physical, and cognitive functioning; (b) integrate qualitative and quantitative methods in prospective study designs; (c) explore further individual differences in the benefits associated with volunteering; (d) include occupational analyses of volunteers' specific jobs in order to identify their social, physical, and cognitive complexity; (e) investigate the independent versus interactive health benefits associated with volunteering relative to engagement in other forms of activity; and (f) examine the relationship between volunteering and dementia risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Full text

Psychological Bulletin
The Benefits Associated With Volunteering Among
Seniors: A Critical Review and Recommendations for
Future Research
Nicole D. Anderson, Thecla Damianakis, Edeltraut Kröger, Laura M. Wagner, Deirdre R.
Dawson, Malcolm A. Binns, Syrelle Bernstein, Eilon Caspi, Suzanne L. Cook, and The BRAVO
Team
Online First Publication, August 25, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037610
CITATION
Anderson, N. D., Damianakis, T., Kröger, E., Wagner, L. M., Dawson, D. R., Binns, M. A.,
Bernstein, S., Caspi, E., Cook, S. L., & The BRAVO Team (2014, August 25). The Benefits
Associated With Volunteering Among Seniors: A Critical Review and Recommendations for
Future Research. Psychological Bulletin. Advance online publication.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037610

The Benefits Associated With Volunteering Among Seniors: A Critical
Review and Recommendations for Future Research
Nicole D. Anderson
Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada, and
University of Toronto
Thecla Damianakis
University of Windsor
Edeltraut Kröger
Centre d’excellence sur le Vieillissement de Québec, Centre de
recherche du CHU de Québec, and Laval University
Laura M. Wagner
University of California, San Francisco
Deirdre R. Dawson and Malcolm A. Binns
Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada, and
University of Toronto
Syrelle Bernstein
Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada
Eilon Caspi
Providence VA Medical Center, Providence, Rhode Island Suzanne L. Cook
York University
The BRAVO Team
There is an urgent need to identify lifestyle activities that reduce functional decline and dementia
associated with population aging. The goals of this article are to review critically the evidence on the
benefits associated with formal volunteering among older adults, propose a theoretical model of how
volunteering may reduce functional limitations and dementia risk, and offer recommendations for future
research. Database searches identified 113 papers on volunteering benefits in older adults, of which 73
were included. Data from descriptive, cross-sectional, and prospective cohort studies, along with 1
randomized controlled trial, most consistently reveal that volunteering is associated with reduced
symptoms of depression, better self-reported health, fewer functional limitations, and lower mortality.
The extant evidence provides the basis for a model proposing that volunteering increases social, physical,
and cognitive activity (to varying degrees depending on characteristics of the volunteer placement)
which, through biological and psychological mechanisms, leads to improved functioning; we further
propose that these volunteering-related functional improvements should be associated with reduced
dementia risk. Recommendations for future research are that studies (a) include more objective measures
of psychosocial, physical, and cognitive functioning; (b) integrate qualitative and quantitative methods in
prospective study designs; (c) explore further individual differences in the benefits associated with
Nicole D. Anderson, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sci-
ences, Toronto, Canada, and Departments of Psychiatry (Medicine) and
Psychology, University of Toronto; Thecla Damianakis, School of Social
Work, University of Windsor; Edeltraut Kröger, Centre d’excellence sur le
Vieillissement de Québec, Centre de recherche du CHU de Québec, and
Faculty of Pharmacy, Laval University; Laura M. Wagner, School of
Nursing, University of California, San Francisco; Deirdre R. Dawson,
Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada,
and Department of Occupational Sciences and Occupational Therapy
(Medicine), University of Toronto; Malcolm A. Binns, Rotman Research
Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada, and Dalla Lana
School of Public Health, University of Toronto; Syrelle Bernstein, Volun-
teer Services, Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada; Eilon Caspi,
Geriatrics and Extended Care Data and Analysis Center, Providence VA
Medical Center, Providence, Rhode Island; Suzanne L. Cook, Department
of Sociology, York University; The BRAVO Team.
This research was supported by Grant MOP 97844 from the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research. Special thanks to the BRAVO Team of 33
leadership volunteers who assisted in the development, oversight, and
data collection of the Baycrest Research About Volunteering Among
Older Adults (BRAVO) study, without whom this article would not be
possible: Beverley Abosh, Janice Babins, Kaselle Beach, Zelick Bock-
nek, Marilyn Boltman, Sara Charney, Elaine Cooper, Susan Dane,
Elaine Fattal, Tony Fattal, Janet Finkelstein, Judy Gliserman, Marie
Goodman, Elaine Harris, Carole Jones, Anne Katz, Anita Lapidus, Joe
Leinwand, Fauna Lidsky, Lorna MacGregor, Alan Marks, Didi Marks,
Clare Friedlich-Markus, Bina Maser לײז
, Janice Maser, Lesley Miller,
Judith Plaut, Nancy Posluns, Rachel Schlesinger, Linda Strasberg Red-
hill, Paula Silver, Susan Teark, and Wendy Weber. We also thank
Aleem Hussain, Simone Chin, Sandra Priselac, Kashfia Alam, Laura
Stefanik, Mariam Iskander, Andrea Maione, and staff at the Volunteer
Services Department at Baycrest, particularly Raquel Heayn and Janis
Sternhill, for their contributions to this work.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nicole D.
Anderson, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, 3560 Bathurst Street,
Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1 Canada. E-mail: nanderson@research.baycrest
.org
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Psychological Bulletin © 2014 American Psychological Association
2014, Vol. 140, No. 6, 000 0033-2909/14/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037610
1

volunteering; (d) include occupational analyses of volunteers’ specific jobs in order to identify their
social, physical, and cognitive complexity; (e) investigate the independent versus interactive health
benefits associated with volunteering relative to engagement in other forms of activity; and (f) examine
the relationship between volunteering and dementia risk.
Keywords: volunteering, older adults, psychosocial well-being, physical functioning, cognitive function-
ing
Gerontological research is undergoing a sea change. After de-
cades of research focused on the negative consequences of aging,
such as cognitive and physical decline and rising dementia rates,
the last 2 decades have seen a refocus on protective factors
reducing cognitive decline and dementia. Protective lifestyle fac-
tors that have been shown to modify dementia risk include adher-
ence in late life to a Mediterranean-style diet (Scarmeas, Stern,
Mayeux, & Luchsinger, 2006; Scarmeas, Stern, Tang, Mayeux, &
Luchsinger, 2006) and late-life exercise or physical activity (e.g.,
Bowen, 2012; Buchman et al., 2012). Activities engaged prior to
one’s senior years have also been associated with reduced demen-
tia risk, such as gaining higher education (Canadian Study of
Health and Aging, 1994; Gatz et al., 2007; Meng & D’Arcy, 2012),
holding complex paid occupations (Andel et al., 2005; Karp et al.,
2009; Kröger et al., 2008), and being a lifelong bilingual (Bia-
lystok, Craik, Binns, Ossher, & Freedman, 2014; Bialystok, Craik,
& Freedman, 2007; Chertkow et al., 2010; Craik, Bialystok, &
Freedman, 2010).
The focus of this article is on the benefits associated with
volunteering in old age, because volunteering may be another form
of lifestyle engagement that protects seniors from functional de-
cline and dementia. We have two primary goals with this integra-
tive and evaluative review. The first goal is to evaluate the avail-
able evidence in relation to our theoretical model, which was
inspired by and extended from that of Fried et al. (2004), as shown
in Figure 1. The thesis of this model is that volunteering increases
social, physical, and cognitive activity (to varying degrees depend-
ing on characteristics of the volunteer placement) which, through
biological and psychological mechanisms, leads to improved func-
tioning and ultimately reduces dementia risk. As will become
apparent in this review, our model is partially but not entirely
supported by available published data. In recognition of the gaps in
the existing literature, the second goal of this paper is to foster
more interdisciplinary research on the protective benefits associ-
ated with volunteering in reducing risk of functional decline and
dementia among older adults. To provide a context for these goals,
we first describe volunteer rates and hours in older and younger
cohorts, as well as the economic impact of volunteering. Then, to
achieve our stated goal, we begin by building a case for why
volunteering might protect the brain health of older adults. Next,
we comprehensively and critically review the existing research on
the biopsychosocial benefits of volunteering, highlighting com-
mon findings and discussing limitations of previous work. Our
thesis on how volunteering can protect functional ability and
reduce dementia risk is then formalized in a model and weighed
against the available evidence. We conclude with a series of
recommendations for future research.
Volunteering Among Seniors
Data from Statistics Canada (2012) and from the U.S. Current
Population Survey, supplemented by the Corporation for National
and Community Service (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013)
are remarkably consistent in reporting that although today’s se-
niors are less likely to volunteer than their younger counterparts,
seniors who do volunteer commit more time to their volunteer
activities than do all other age groups. For example, in Canada,
36.5% of people aged 65 and older volunteered in 2010, compared
to 40% to 58% in the younger age bands. In 2013 in the United
States, 24.1% of people aged 65 and older volunteered, compared
Volunteering
Social
Activity
Physical
Activity
Cognitive
Activity
Generativity
Altruism
Role enhancement
Self-efficacy
Physical health
BDNF
Neurogenesis
Functional
reor
g
anization
Psychosocial
Functioning
Physical
Functioning
Cognitive
Functioning
Functional
Improvement
Mechanisms Proximal Outcomes Distal
Outcome
Reduced
Dementia
Risk
Figure 1. Theoretical model of how volunteering leads to functional improvements and decreases dementia
risk among older adults. BDNF ⫽brain derived neurotrophic factor. Adapted from “A Social Model for Health
Promotion for an Aging Population: Initial Evidence on the Experience Corps Model,” by L. P. Fried et al., 2004,
Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 81, p. 66. Copyright 2004 by the New
York Academy of Medicine.
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2ANDERSON ET AL.

to 30% and 28% in the Generation X and Baby Boomer genera-
tions, respectively. Seniors report health concerns as a chief reason
for not volunteering. Despite being less likely to volunteer than
their younger counterparts, Canadian senior (aged 65⫹) volunteers
spent a median 100 annual hr volunteering, compared to 35 to 80
annual hr in the younger age bands. Similarly, in 2013 Americans
aged 65–74 spent a median 86 annual hr volunteering, compared to
45 and 52 annual hr in the Generation X and Baby Boomer
generations (Statistics Canada, 2012; U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics, 2013).
Volunteer contribution has a tremendous economic impact. Us-
ing the Independent Sector’s (2012) estimate of the average value
of a volunteer hour of $22.14 in 2012, this high volume of
volunteering among seniors translates into an estimated $4 billion
in Canada and over $19 billion in the United States. A conservative
estimate is that volunteers of all ages contribute $400 billion to the
global economy (International Labour Organization, 2011). The
rates, hours, and economic contributions of senior volunteering
reveal a clear societal benefit to volunteering; the focus of this
review, however, is on the personal benefits of volunteering.
Why Volunteering Might Protect Against Cognitive
Decline and Dementia
We argue that in important ways, volunteering is similar to other
pursuits that engage a person in social, physical, and/or cognitive
activity, such as joining a walking group, belonging to a book club,
or taking a computer class. There is growing evidence that social,
physical, and cognitive activity in one’s postretirement leisure
pursuits protects against dementia (for a review, see Fratiglioni,
Paillard-Borg, & Winblad, 2004). Many prospective cohort studies
have reported that adults who engage in more social activity
(Bennett, Schneider, Tang, Arnold, & Wilson, 2006; Fratiglioni,
Wang, Ericsson, Maytan, & Winblad, 2000), more physical activ-
ity (Carlson, Helms, et al., 2008; Larson et al., 2006; Podewils et
al., 2005; Rovio et al., 2005; Wang, Larson, Bowen, & van Belle,
2006), or more cognitive activity (Akbaraly et al., 2009; Wilson et
al., 2002) have lower dementia rates, even after controlling for
potentially confounding variables such as age, education, medical
conditions, and apolipoprotein E genotype. For example, Karp et
al. (2006) examined the social, physical, and cognitive complexity
of the everyday leisure activities (e.g., reading, engaging in sports,
playing music) of 766 nondemented Swedish seniors over 6 years.
They found that after controlling for age, sex, education, baseline
mental status, health comorbidities, and physical functioning,
those who engaged in activities requiring moderate social, physi-
cal, or cognitive effort were 32%, 39%, and 29%, respectively, less
likely to develop dementia, relative to those who engaged in
activities requiring little or no effort. The seniors who were least
likely to develop dementia—enjoying a 47% risk reduction—
engaged in leisure activities demanding moderate effort in at least
two of these three domains. A recent report also suggests that
engaging in a greater variety of leisure activities, regardless of how
cognitively challenging they are, is associated with a reduced risk
of memory impairment (Carlson et al., 2012).
There are a number of candidate mechanisms through which
activity may reduce dementia risk. Social mechanisms include role
theory, which suggests that active engagement may substitute roles
lost due to retirement, reduced parental responsibilities as children
and grandchildren age, or widowhood (see Chambré, 1984; Moen,
Dempster-McClain, & Williams, 1992). Social network size has
been shown to modify the relationship between Alzheimer’s dis-
ease brain pathology and cognition, such that even among those
with severe brain pathology, older adults with larger social net-
works fare better cognitively (Bennett et al., 2006). Moreover, the
quality of social interactions appears to moderate dementia risk,
with more satisfying social interactions being more protective
(Fratiglioni et al., 2000). Psychological mechanisms for the pro-
tective effects of activity have also been proposed. Fratiglioni et al.
(2004) argue that physical, cognitive, and social activities reduce
stress, improve self-esteem, and foster healthy mood states that in
turn help reduce the neurotoxic effects of chronic cortisol eleva-
tion. Physical mechanisms for the protective effects of activity
include the well-established cardiovascular benefits of physical
activity, and more recent evidence shows that exercise increases
neurotrophic factors associated with neurogenesis in the hip-
pocampus (Cotman & Berchtold, 2007). Indeed, exercise has been
associated with improvements in learning and memory in seniors
(Colcombe & Kramer, 2003; Middleton, Mitnitski, Fallah, Kirk-
land, & Rockwood, 2008), as well as volumetric increases in
hippocampal (Erickson et al., 2011) and prefrontal grey and white
matter (Colcombe et al., 2006). Finally, in terms of cognitive
mechanisms by which activity can protect against cognitive de-
cline and dementia, the acquisition of new cognitive skills can
induce functional reorganization, in which either a less extensive
cortical network is required for task performance (e.g., Erickson et
al., 2007) or additional brain regions are brought online to perform
a task (e.g., Small, Moody, Siddarth, & Bookheimer, 2009). In-
creased cognitive activity has also been proposed to induce neu-
rogenesis and synaptogenesis (Valenzuela, Breakspear, & Sach-
dev, 2007). All of these can be viewed as contributing to cognitive
or brain reserve (see Stern, 2012; Valenzuela, 2008), allowing
individuals to maintain their levels of functioning even in the
presence of extensive brain damage.
Our view is that, like these other activities, volunteering in-
creases physical, cognitive, and social activity in older adults’ lives
to varying degrees depending on the volunteer role; as such, it too
should be protective against functional decline and dementia in old
age. This view is consistent with activity theory, which postulates
a positive relationship between the amount of activity in which
older adults engage and life satisfaction (Lemon, Bengtson, &
Peterson, 1972). As this review demonstrates, there is evidence
that greater amounts of volunteer activity are associated with a
broader range of salubrious health outcomes. To date, no studies
have reported on the association between volunteering and demen-
tia risk, but many have examined how volunteering relates to
maintenance or improvement of physical, cognitive, and/or social
functioning among older adults without dementia.
Unlike most other activities that provide social, physical, and
cognitive activity and have been shown to be associated with
reduced risk of functional decline and dementia, volunteering may
also have added value. People typically volunteer to help other
individuals. As such, volunteering has an altruistic component that
is not inherent to other lifestyle activities, and there is some
evidence that performing altruistic acts is related to better physical
and mental health in seniors (for a review, see Post, 2005). For
example, in cross-sectional studies of older adults, giving more
materially (e.g., money or food) or emotionally (e.g., advice) than
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3
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

one received in return was associated with better self-reported
physical health (W. M. Brown, Consedine, & Magai, 2005), and
providing emotional support to others was associated with better
mental health (Schwartz, Meisenhelder, Ma, & Reed, 2003). Com-
pellingly, in one study, seniors who reported providing more
instrumental support to family and friends or more emotional
support to their spouses had lower mortality rates; receiving sup-
port had no influence on mortality (S. L. Brown, Nesse, Vinokur,
& Smith, 2003). However, as we describe later in more detail,
Kahana, Bhatta, Lovegreen, Kahana, and Midlarsky (2013) found
in their prospective study that volunteering and altruistic attitudes
differentially predicted mental health outcomes. This suggests that
although volunteering is an altruistic act, the association between
volunteering and health outcomes cannot be attributed solely to the
act of, or benefits from, helping others.
Existing Research on the Benefits of Volunteering
Among Older Adults
This comprehensive review is qualitative (narrative), not quan-
titative (meta-analytic). Meta-analyses compel one to both collapse
different constructs (e.g., life satisfaction, affect, depression as
measures of well-being or quality of life) and omit other measures
on which there have been too few studies reporting (e.g., mental
status). For example, an early meta-analysis combined measures of
life satisfaction, happiness, depression, isolation, client-assessed
helpfulness of the volunteer, and goal attainment to form an
overarching measure of well-being, and combined data from
across 37 cross-sectional, quasi-experimental, and experimental
study designs, eight of which were unpublished (Wheeler, Gorey,
& Greenblatt, 1998). Although it is encouraging that their meta-
analysis found greater well-being in older adult volunteers than
their nonvolunteering counterparts, our goal is to obtain a more
comprehensive view of the current state of knowledge on the
benefits of volunteering among older adults, making both the
common findings and the gaps in our understanding more appar-
ent.
Exclusion and Inclusion of Articles
The articles reviewed here were obtained by searching PsycInfo,
Scopus, PubMed, and MedLine for works published prior to April
2014, using the search terms (volunteering OR volunteer OR
voluntary OR productive activity) AND (older adults OR aging
OR elderly), with and without the additional term benefits. The
reference lists of the resulting articles were also searched for
relevant papers. This review is limited to peer-reviewed evidence
published in English; study results were excluded if provided in
technical reports, books, or book chapters. We also restricted this
review to formal volunteering, which the International Labour
Organization (2011) defines as “unpaid noncompulsory work; that
is, time individuals give without pay to activities performed either
through an organization or directly for others outside their own
household” (p. 13). Articles focusing on informal volunteering
(e.g., care giving, providing social support to friends, family, and
neighbors) or on membership in voluntary associations or groups
(e.g., the YMCA) were excluded; although these are recognized as
important and valuable activities, the existing research on the
benefits of volunteering is dominated by the study of people in
formal volunteer placements. After this initial culling, 113 articles
describing empirical studies of benefits associated with formal
volunteering among older adults were identified. From this, a total
of 72 articles was selected after applying five criteria, as described
below.
1
Focus on Older Adults
Because of our focus on preventing functional decline and
dementia, studies were included if they involved older adults
(defined liberally as age 50⫹), either alone or in direct comparison
with younger cohorts; thus, articles that sampled volunteers from
across the adult lifespan but did not analyze the results as a
function of age were excluded (n⫽5).
Focus on Formal Volunteering
Only studies that examined the correlates of formal volunteer-
ing, distinct from or in comparison to other productive activities
such as working, belonging to community groups, and so forth,
were included; thus, studies that merged volunteering with other
productive activities were excluded (n⫽15).
Focus on the Benefits Associated With Volunteering
Studies that examined only demographic differences between
older volunteers and nonvolunteers or older adults’ motivations for
or barriers to volunteering were excluded (n⫽11). One additional
study that summed survey items across different benefit types was
also excluded. Importantly, this review focuses on the benefits
associated with volunteering and not its potential costs. For dis-
cussion of the costs (and benefits) of volunteering for both volun-
teers and organizations, we refer readers to Handy and Mook
(2011) and Celdrán and Villar (2007).
Control for Sociodemographic Differences
The importance of controlling for sociodemographic group dif-
ferences is particularly important and requires further commentary.
Early reports from the 1950s and 1960s that demonstrated higher
life satisfaction among older adults who participated in voluntary
associations (but did not necessarily volunteer) were soon ques-
tioned when it was realized that demographic and health variables
were strongly related to participation. As Cutler (1973) stated,
after finding that the relationship between older adults’ participa-
tion in voluntary associations and life satisfaction was eliminated
once socioeconomic status and subjective health were controlled,
“It seems reasonable to conclude, then, that voluntary associations
self-select as members and as participants persons who are initially
more satisfied with their life situation by virtue of their health and
status characteristics” (p. 99).
Similar sociodemographic and health differences have been
reported in comparisons of senior volunteers with their nonvolun-
teering counterparts (e.g., McMunn, Nazroo, Wahrendorf, Breeze,
& Zaninotto, 2009; Pilkington, Windsor, & Crisp, 2012; Shmot-
kin, Blumstein, & Modan, 2003; Windsor, Anstey, & Rodgers,
1
A list of these papers and the reason for their exclusion is available
upon request.
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4ANDERSON ET AL.

2008). Seniors who are younger, more educated, healthier, or who
earn more, are more likely to volunteer. However, we are inter-
ested in whether seniors who volunteer experience benefits regard-
less of their health and demographic status. For this reason, we
include in this review only analyses that controlled for or included
in the statistical models demographic characteristics (e.g., age,
gender, education, income) when it was possible for the authors to
do so. This led to the exclusion of n⫽6 additional articles.
Inclusion of a Nonvolunteering Control Group
Our fifth criterion required that studies have a nonvolunteering
control group; studies that lacked this control were excluded (n⫽
2). Although we discuss some potential disadvantages of nonvol-
unteering control groups later in this review (e.g., social selection
effects and attrition) and offer an alternate study design, without
these groups it is possible that benefits reported are due to some
nonvolunteering factor (e.g., social selection effects or demand
characteristics).
Exceptions to Inclusion Criteria
One important exception to these final two criteria was that we
included descriptive studies (both qualitative and quantitative) of
the benefits of volunteering. This is the only design type that has
been used in qualitative studies on the benefits associated with
volunteering in older adults, and we felt it was essential that a
comprehensive review of this area include seniors’ views on these
benefits, in their own words.
Review Structure
Ultimately, 73 articles met the inclusion criteria. These articles
vary widely in their design, approach, and outcome measures
reported. To structure the review, we classified the existing re-
search in terms of three dimensions: the reported data type (qual-
itative, subjective, and objective), the measurement domain (psy-
chosocial, physical, cognitive), and the study design type
(descriptive, cross-sectional, prospective cohort, and randomized
controlled trial). For the first dimension, qualitative data reflect
common, conceptual themes that emerge across participants’ in-
terview transcripts; subjective data summarize participants’
questionnaire-based responses; and objective data are measure-
ments of actual performance or events.
The study design types included in this review were descriptive,
cross-sectional, prospective cohort, and one randomized control
trial. Descriptive studies on the benefits of volunteering assess a
single group of individuals who volunteer, using qualitative, sub-
jective, or objective measures. We include descriptive studies in
this review to incorporate the qualitative studies, as mentioned
above, although some descriptive studies reported subjective
and/or objective data. Descriptive studies are not designed to
assess causality, and indeed one cannot determine from these
studies whether the benefits reported are in fact due to the partic-
ipants’ volunteering or to some other factors that can be controlled
better in other design types, such as preexisting characteristics of
those individuals that predispose them to volunteer in the first
place, demand characteristics to say positive things in an inter-
view, or some general factor, such as having attention paid to
them. What qualitative studies provide, however, is the unique
advantage of hearing seniors’ perceptions of the benefits of vol-
unteering in their own words. In particular, with open-ended or
semistructured interviews, the results obtained are not limited by
the questions asked, as they are with subjective (questionnaire) and
objective data collection, but can reveal perspectives that reinforce
conclusions drawn from these other measures or offer new per-
spectives for further study. Characteristics of the 17 descriptive
studies on the benefits of volunteering among older adults included
in this review are shown in Table 1.
The cross-sectional studies included herein compare older
adults who volunteer to older adults who do not volunteer on one
or more outcome measures of interest, controlling for sociodemo-
graphic differences between the two groups. It is not possible to
conclude with certainty that differences between cross-sectional
groups are, in fact, due to volunteering. However, controlling for
factors that associate with the propensity to volunteer and with
better outcomes increases our confidence that differences between
groups are due to volunteering. Characteristics of the 14 cross-
sectional studies that have examined the relations between volun-
teer status and health outcomes are reported in Table 2.
Prospective cohort (longitudinal) studies include older adult
volunteers and nonvolunteers, sometimes stratified by age and
other demographic variables, and follow them over a series of time
points (waves). One of many regression techniques is then used to
assess change in outcome measures over time or the probability of
a later event, controlling for individual differences in these and
other measures at baseline or in an earlier wave. The advantage of
prospective cohort study designs over descriptive and cross-
sectional study designs is that they are able to reduce confounding
of the observed changes over time by participant characteristics at
an earlier wave of data collection. Although prospective studies
cannot prove causality, they provide good evidence for it, partic-
ularly if the effects are strong, replicated in independent studies,
and show a dose–response function (Mann, 2003).
Descriptions of the 36 prospective cohort papers included in this
review are described in Table 3 (study cohort names are bolded,
and papers using data from the larger studies are not). These study
cohort descriptions are provided in order to establish the context
from which the reported data came. In addition, the data from most
of these study cohorts are freely accessible to researchers to
conduct additional analyses. There is thus great potential to capi-
talize on these large data sets to replicate reported associations
between volunteering and functional outcomes or to explore many
associations that have yet to be investigated. Note that the primar-
ily cross-sectional study by Shmotkin et al. (2003) is included in
Table 3 because the authors examined mortality risk by volunteer-
ing status.
The reader will note that a number of papers have been pub-
lished from a handful of large prospective cohort studies, namely,
the Americans’ Changing Lives study (ACL), the Assets in Health
Dynamics Among the Oldest Old study (AHEAD), the Health and
Retirement Study (HRS), the Longitudinal Study on Aging
(LSOA) and its successor (LSOA II), and the Wisconsin Longi-
tudinal Study (WLS). It is not surprising that papers using the same
data set tend to report converging findings. We present the results
from each of the individual papers; however, to avoid false im-
pressions about the reproducibility of findings, in the review we
discuss the findings at the study (not individual paper) level.
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5
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

Table 1
Characteristics of Descriptive Studies on the Benefits of Volunteering Among Older Adults
Study Location Volunteers
(n) Age range Description
Arnstein et al.
(2002) New England 7 41–70 Graduates of a chronic pain management program volunteered to provide peer
support for other chronic pain management clients, including leading small
group discussions and making weekly supportive phone calls. Participants
provided written and verbal (recorded) accounts of their experiences in the
program.
Barron et al.
(2009) Baltimore,
MD 174 60⫹Volunteers with the Experience Corps study completed surveys about their
physical activity, energy level, and strength, and underwent objective
testing of their grip strength, chair stands, walking speed, and flight of stair
walking speed. The survey and assessments were conducted when
participants began the program and at the end of the academic year.
Celdrán & Villar
(2007) Barcelona,
Spain 88 55⫹(M⫽68) Volunteers with management, cultural, or social services organizations
completed a questionnaire about their satisfaction with volunteering, and
their perceptions of six volunteering benefits and six volunteering
drawbacks.
Cook (2011) Canada 214 55–75 Volunteers at various nonprofit organizations (e.g., Diabetes Society, Meals
on Wheels) answered the question, “What learning goals do you have
through your volunteer work?”
Cook (2013) Canada 214 55–75 Canadian volunteers at various nonprofit organizations (e.g., Diabetes Society,
Meals on Wheels) answered the questions about how they and others
viewed themselves. The results reported here are those pertinent to
participants’ views on how volunteering affects their self-definition.
Hainsworth &
Barlow (2001) England &
Wales 22 50–72 (Mdn ⫽58) Volunteers with arthritis who codelivered an arthritis self-management course
were interviewed before attending training, 6 weeks after training, and 6
months after training. Data summarized in Table 5 are from the last two
interviews.
Jirovec & Hyduk
(1998) Detroit, MI 120 62⫹Residents of Detroit who had a history of volunteering with the American
Red Cross or Hospital Aid Society answered a survey about their
volunteering frequency, life satisfaction, and physical health.
Kerschner &
Rousseau
(2008)
U.S. 714 Adult (85% 56⫹) Volunteer drivers from 40 states responded to survey questions about the
satisfaction they receive from volunteering.
Larkin et al.
(2005) Florida 16 55⫹Volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters were asked “What pleases you most
about your mentoring role?”
Misener et al.
(2010) Ontario,
Canada 20 65⫹(M⫽72) Volunteers served in community sports organizations, in leadership positions
(e.g., chair, board member), as coaches or officials, or as members of
subcommittees. Participants completed open-ended interviews, including the
positive and negative aspects of their volunteering.
Morrow-Howell
et al. (2012) U.S. 180 50–84 (M⫽65) Volunteers in the Experience Corps program were surveyed about whether
they engaged in each of 15 activities, and the frequency of engagement.
The survey was administered when participants began the program and at
the end of the academic year.
Morrow-Howell
et al. (2009) U.S. 401 51–90 Volunteers in one of 13 large programs answered an 11-item, closed-ended
survey about perceived benefits of volunteering.
Morrow-Howell
et al. (1999) U.S. 289 55⫹(M⫽71) Volunteers with OASIS (a national nonprofit organization that provides
educational and volunteer opportunities for Americans aged 55⫹) answered
an 8-item, closed-ended survey, as well as open-ended questions, including
“What about OASIS has been the most beneficial to you?”
Narushima
(2005) Toronto,
Canada 15 55–93 Volunteers in nonprofit organizations were interviewed with open-ended
questions, including questions about what they had learned and experienced
in their volunteering.
Newman et al.
(1985) U.S. 180 55–85 Volunteers at three school volunteer programs (in New York City, Los
Angeles, and Pittsburgh) answered a 3-item closed-ended questionnaire
about the effects of their volunteering on their well-being and an interview
in which the main question was, “How has the volunteer experience
affected you?”
Piercy et al.
(2011) U.S. 38 51⫹(M⫽65) Volunteers who provided religious, humanitarian volunteer work away from
their homes (mainly overseas) were interviewed about the challenges and
benefits of their volunteer experiences.
Young & Janke
(2013) South
Carolina 195 50–89 Volunteers in an intergenerational program completed a 10-item survey on
two occasions (interval not indicated), asking about feelings of self,
physical health, mental health, social life, life satisfaction, openness to new
ideas, interest in youth education, energy levels, involvement in the
community, and knowledge and skills. Data shown in Table 5 are changes
in response over time.
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6ANDERSON ET AL.

The fourth type of study is a randomized controlled trial. The
first and only published randomized controlled trial on the benefits
of volunteering among older adults is called Experience Corps
(Fried, Freedman, Endres, & Wasik, 1997; Fried et al., 2004; Glass
et al., 2004; Rebok et al., 2004). The motivation, theoretical model,
and design of this study were reported by Glass et al. (2004). In
brief, older adults were randomly assigned to either a waitlist
control group, or to groups of 15–30 volunteers working in public
elementary schools across the country. Volunteers served an av-
erage of 15 hr a week, performing activities such as supporting
literacy development in kindergarten through Grade 3, supporting
library functions, teaching children conflict resolution through
problem solving and play, and enhancing school attendance.
Randomized controlled trials are considered the gold standard in
clinical research. In randomized controlled trials of volunteering,
volunteer groups and (waitlisted) nonvolunteer groups are more
likely to have similar distributions of demographic characteristics
and motivations to volunteer at the study outset. In addition,
differences between volunteer and nonvolunteer groups at the
trial’s completion are more likely to have resulted from volunteer-
ing, rather than be associated with the propensity to volunteer in
the first place. The Experience Corps study in particular has
propelled the field forward; it is the first study to include a wide
range of objective measures of physical and cognitive functioning,
as the review details. Characteristics of the six papers using data
from Experience Corps that have reported on the health benefits of
volunteering among older adults are provided in Table 4. As with
the prospective cohort studies, to avoid false impressions about the
reproducibility of findings, we are careful to note where particular
outcome measures from a common sample are reported in more
than one paper.
One serious threat to internal validity to which clinical random-
ized controlled trials are not immune is participants’ preferences
for one treatment arm over the others. This can affect recruitment,
degree of engagement in the study, and attrition (Corrigan &
Salzer, 2003; Donaldson, Christie, & Mark, 2009). In the Experi-
ence Corps data reported by Carlson, Saczynski, et al. (2008), 148
participants were randomly assigned to the volunteer intervention
or waitlist control group; after attrition, 70 remained in the inter-
vention group and 58 in the control group. These numbers imply
that those assigned to the waitlist control group attrite at a signif-
icantly higher rate (⬃22% dropout rate) compared to those as-
signed to the volunteer intervention group (⬃5% dropout rate).
Although is not surprising that individuals who are motivated to
volunteer but assigned to a waitlist control group attrite at higher
rates than those assigned to the volunteer group, differential attri-
tion rates render randomized-controlled trials susceptible to selec-
tion artifacts similar to other design types. Indeed, Experience
Corps participants who dropped out of the study were more likely
than those who remained in the study to be older than 75 years,
male, Caucasian, and working (Fried et al., 2004). Perhaps in
response to attrition among the waitlist control group and its
Table 2
Characteristics of Cross-Sectional Studies on the Benefits of Volunteering Among Older Adults
Study nvolunteers
(nonvolunteers) Participant
age range Control
variables
b
Description
Aquino et al. (1996) 91 (201) 65⫹AEGM Community-living residents of Linn County, IA, stratified such that
half lived in urban and half in rural areas.
Bond (1982) 323 in total
a
55–74 AEGMW Residents of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, recruited through
employers (aged 55–64) or the community (aged 65–74).
Carp (1968) 53 (299) 65⫹AEIG Applicants for public housing for the aged.
Dulin et al. (2012) 1,028 in total
a
57–72 AEIMR Residents of New Zealand, sampled so that almost half (n⫽441)
were of Ma
៮ori ethnicity, and the remainder were of European
descent.
Hunter & Linn
(1980–1981) 53 (49) 65⫹EHW Residents of Miami, FL. Volunteers recruited from the Veterans
Administration Hospital.
Krause et al. (1992) 1,551 in total
a
60⫹AG Data from Wave 1 of the Americans’ Changing Lives study (see
Table 4), from participants who were aged 60⫹.
McIntosh &
Danigelis (1995) 1,644 in total
a
60⫹EGHMR Data from Wave 1 of the Americans’ Changing Lives study (see
Table 4), from Black and White participants aged 60⫹.
McMunn et al.
(2009) 477 (4,657) 乆60⫹AHIM Data from Wave 2 (2004) of the English Longitudinal Study of
Ageing who were above the British pension age.么65⫹
Okun et al. (2011) 2,039 (2,122) 18⫹AEGHR Data from the 2008 Arizona Health Survey, which sampled
Arizona adult residents.
Pilkington et al.
(2012) 275 (286) 55–94 AEGHMW Data from the Transitions in Later Life Study, which sampled
Australian residents.
Shmotkin et al.
(2003) 148 (1,195) 75–94 AEGHIMR Data from Wave 1 (1989–1992) of the Cross-Sectional and
Longitudinal Aging Study of Israeli Jewish residents.
Wahrendorf et al.
(2006) 2,678 (20,099) 50⫹AEGHIMW Data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in
Europe of residents in 10 European countries.
Warburton & Peel
(2008) 209 (167) 65⫹AEGHI Case control study of Brisbane, Australia, patients with fall-related
hip fracture and sex-, age-, and postal-code-matched controls.
Windsor et al.
(2008) 919 (1,217) 64–68 EGMW Data from Wave 2 (2005–2006) of the PATH Through Life
Project, sampling residents of Canberra and Queanbeyan,
Australia.
a
Breakdown between volunteers and nonvolunteers not provided.
b
Control variables: A ⫽age; E ⫽education; G ⫽gender; H ⫽health, disability, or
physical ability; I ⫽income; M ⫽marital or partnered status; R ⫽race or ethnicity; W ⫽work/employment status.
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BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

Table 3
Characteristics of Prospective Cohort Studies From Which Data on the Benefits of Volunteering Among Older Adults Were Drawn,
and Specifics of Samples Used in Prospective Studies Reviewed
Study Sample Wave (n) Volunteering data/Control variable
a
Americans’ Changing
Lives (ACL) • Residents of continental U.S.,
aged 25⫹
• Oversampling of African
Americans (2:1) and people aged
60⫹(2:1)
1. 1986 (3,617) Number of hours volunteered in previous
12 months by type (religious,
educational, political, senior citizen
group, other)
2. 1989 (2,867)
3. 1994 (2,562)
4. 2001–2002 (1,787)
Han & Hong (2013) Aged 60⫹at baseline All waves (1,669) AEGMRW
Kim & Pai (2010) All participants Waves 1–3 (3,617) AEGHIMR
Li (2007) Aged 50⫹and married or widowed
at baseline Waves 1–3 (2,695) AEGHIWR
Li & Ferraro (2005) Aged 60⫹at baseline Waves 1–3 (1,634) AEGHIMR
Li & Ferraro (2006) All participants Waves 1–3 (2,509) AEGHIMRW
Morrow-Howell et al.
(2005) Aged 60⫹at baseline Waves 1–3 (2,739) AGHR
Musick et al. (1999) Aged 65⫹at baseline; mortality by
1994 Wave 1 (1,211) AEGIR
Musick & Wilson (2003) All participants Waves 1–3 (2,867) AEGHIMRW
Tang (2009) Aged 60⫹at baseline Waves 1–3 (1,209–1,669)
b
AEGIMRW
Thoits & Hewitt (2001) All participants Waves 1–2 (2,681) AEGIMR
Van Willigen (2000) All participants Waves 1–2 (2,867) AEGHIM
Asset and Health
Dynamics Among the
Oldest Old Study
(AHEAD)
c,d
• Community-living residents of
U.S., targeting people aged 70⫹
1. 1993 (7,447, plus 775 younger
spouses) Prior to 1998, ⬎100 hr in previous 12
months
• Over-sampling of African
Americans, Mexican Hispanics,
and residents of Florida (1.8:1)
2. 1995 (7,027) Wave 3 on, number of hours in previous
12 months3. 1998 (5,951)
4. 2000 (5,000)
5. 2002 (4,107)
6. 2004 (3,365)
7. 2006 (2,700)
8. 2008 (2,142)
Fonda & Herzog (2001) Aged 70⫹at baseline Waves 1–2 (5,082) AEGHR
Lum & Lightfoot (2005) Aged 70⫹at baseline Waves1&4(7,322) AEGHIMR
Luoh & Herzog (2002) All participants; mortality by 2000 Waves 1–4 (4,860) AEGHIMR
Health and Retirement
Study (HRS)
c,d
• Residents of the U.S., targeting
people aged 50⫹
1. 1992 (12,652) Volunteering (yes/no) and number of hours
volunteered in previous 12 months2. 1994 (11,420)
3. 1996 (10,964)
4. 1998 (10584)
5. 2000 (10,044)
6. 2002 (9,724)
7. 2004 (9,362)
8. 2006 (9,879)
9. 2008 (8,493)
Burr et al. (2007) Self-identified as White or Black Waves 7–8 (5,654) AEGIR
McDonnall (2011) With versus without dual-sensory
loss All AHEAD and HRS to 2006
(2,688) AEGHI
Choi & Bohman (2007) Aged 65⫹at baseline Waves 4–5 (8,030) AEIR
Hao (2008) Born 1931–1941 Waves 3–6 (7,830) AEGRW
Lee et al. (2011) Aged 65⫹; mortality by 2006 Waves 5–6 (6,408) AEGHMR
Tavares et al. (2013) Self-identified as White or Black Waves 7–8 (5,666) AEGHIR
Longitudinal Study of
Aging (LSOA) Community-living residents of U.S.,
aged 70⫹
1. 1984 (7,541) Volunteering (yes/no) and frequency in
past 12 months: never, rarely,
sometimes, frequently
2. 1986 (5,151)
3. 1988 (7,527)
4. 1990 (5,151)
Harris & Thoresen
(2005) All participants; mortality by 1991 Waves 1–4: (7,496) AEGHIRW
Sabin (1993) All participants; mortality by 1988 Waves 1–3: (7,502) AEGHR
Longitudinal Study of
Aging (LSOA II) Community-living residents of the
U.S., aged 70⫹
1. 1994 (9,447) Volunteering (yes/no) and frequency (user
specified)2. 1997–1998 (7,998)
3. 1999–2000 (6,465)
Hong et al. (2009) All participants with depression
data Waves 1–3 (5,294) AEGHIMR
(table continues)
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8ANDERSON ET AL.

Table 3 (continued)
Study Sample Wave (n) Volunteering data/Control variable
a
Wisconsin Longitudinal
Study (WLS) Persons who graduated from
Wisconsin high schools in 1957 1. 1957 (10,317) Type and frequency of volunteering
2. 1964 (8,922)
3. 1975 (9,138)
4. 1992–1993 (8,493)
5. 2004 (7,732)
Konrath et al. (2012) All participants; mortality by 2008 Waves 4–5 (3,376 or 5,512)
b
AEGHIMW
Piliavin & Siegl (2007) All participants Waves 1–5 (⬎6,000) EGIMW
Israeli Central Bureau
of Statistics Residents of Israel aged 60⫹1. Seven-year mortality follow-up
from people interviewed in 1997–
1998 (5,005)
Volunteering (yes/no) and hours of
volunteering per week at interview time
Ayalon (2008) All participants Wave 1 (5,005); mortality by 2004 AEGHMW
Midlife Development in
United States
(MIDUS)
English-speaking, community-living
residents of U.S., aged 20–74 at
Wave I. Oversampling in select
metropolitan areas, siblings of
main sample, and twins
1. 1995–1996 (3,032) Hours per month volunteering by type
2. 2004–2006 (1,805)
Choi & Kim (2011) Aged 55–84 at Wave 2 with
complete data Waves 1–2 (917) AGR (with the influence of EHI modeled)
The Survey of Health
and Living Status of
the Elderly in
Taiwan
Taiwanese individuals aged 60⫹1. 1989 (4,049) Volunteering (yes/no) collected at Wave I
only2. 1993 (3,155)
3. 1996 (2,669)
4. 1999 (2,310)
Hsu (2007) All participants Waves 2–4 (3,155); mortality by
1999 AEGHIMR
MacArthur Study of
Successful Aging Community-living residents from
three sites in U.S., aged 70–79 in
1988
1. 1988 (1,189) Volunteered in past 12 months (yes/no),
and if so, number of hours2. 1991 (1,103)
3. 1995 (853)
Jung et al. (2010) Participants with complete
productivity and frailty data Waves 1–2 (1,072) AH
Florida Retirement
Study Residents of the west coast of
Florida, aged 72⫹
1. 1988 (1,000) Hours volunteered per week
2. 1989 (889)
3. 1990 (n/a)
4. 1991 (n/a)
5. 1992 (n/a)
6. 1993 (n/a)
7. 1994 (n/a)
8. 1995 (n/a)
9. 1996 (n/a)
Kahana et al. (2013) Participants with complete predictor
and outcome data Waves2&5(585) AGHM
Aging in Manitoba
Study Manitoba, Canada, residents aged
65⫹
Three cross-sectional samples: Volunteered within last week (yes/no)
1. 1971 (4,803)
2. 1976 (1,302)
3. 1983 (2,873)
Longitudinal surveying of survivors
of the three cross-sectional
samples:
1. 1983 (2,399)
2. 1990 (3,218)
3. 1996 (1,868)
4. 2001 (1,012)
Menec (2003) All participants with complete data
for the specific analyses Longitudinal Waves 2–3 (1,208–
2,291)
b
AEGH
Later Life Study of
Social Exchanges Community-living residents of U.S.
mainland aged 65–91 Five waves collected between 2000
and 2002 (916) Volunteered within last month, with six
options: never or almost never, once a
month or less, several times a month,
about once a week, several times a
week, or daily
Okun et al. (2010) All participants with complete data
on study variables All waves (868); mortality to 2006 AEGHMW
(table continues)
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BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

possible magnification of group differences in change over time,
some more recent Experience Corps papers by Tan et al. (2009)
and Hong and Morrow-Howell (2010) compared changes in Ex-
perience Corps volunteers’ outcome measures to those of partici-
pants in other prospective cohort studies, rather than to the Expe-
rience Corps waitlist control participants.
This review is organized by study design type within measure-
ment domain (psychosocial, physical, and cognitive). We review
the associations between volunteering among older adults and
psychosocial measures first, then physical measures, and then
cognitive measures, separately considering the evidence from de-
scriptive, cross-sectional, prospective cohort, and randomized con-
trolled trials. These results are summarized in Tables 5, 6, and 7,
where columns represent specific measures or outcomes within
each measurement domain. The rows represent the studies, orga-
nized by study design type. The cell symbols represent the data
type (triangles represent qualitative data, squares represent subjec-
tive data, and circles represent objective data) as well as the
outcome as reported. Filled symbols represent a significant benefit
associated with volunteering; open symbols represent a nonsignif-
icant relationship with volunteering.
Null qualitative data (open triangles) are not to be expected,
because it is not the nature of qualitative research to report on
themes that no one endorsed. Nevertheless, the relatively high ratio
of positive to null subjective and objective outcomes hints at a
degree of publication bias, where positive outcomes are more
likely to be reported and null effects are more likely to be under-
reported (cf. Francis, 2012). There is no way to assess in a valid
manner the degree to which null results have gone underreported;
even if we were to contact each of the listed authors for a complete
set of null results, this would not reveal all of the analyses that
were not submitted or accepted for publication in other studies or
by other authors. Instead, we encourage researchers to report all
results examined, regardless of outcome, toward the goal of a
complete and accurate understanding of the benefits of volunteer-
ing among older adults.
Psychosocial Benefits Associated With Volunteering
Among Older Adults
Results of the psychosocial benefits of volunteering are shown
in Table 5. The majority of studies on the benefits associated with
volunteering among older adults have reported psychosocial out-
comes. A number of cross-sectional and prospective cohort stud-
ies, together with the Experience Corps study, have reported
positive associations between volunteering and reduced symptoms
Table 3 (continued)
Study Sample Wave (n) Volunteering data/Control variable
a
No specific name
provided Community-living residents of
Marin County, CA, aged 55⫹,
with those aged 75⫹
oversampled
1. 4-year mortality follow-up on
people interviewed in 1990–1991
(2,025)
Volunteering (yes/no), number of hours
volunteered per week, and number of
organizations
Oman et al. (1999) All participants with volunteering
data Wave 1 (2,021); mortality to
November 1995 AEGHIMRW
Changing Lives of
Older Couples
(CLOC) study
Community-living married couples
of the Detroit, MI, area, where
the husband was aged 65⫹
1. 6-year mortality follow-up on
people interviewed in 1987–1988
(1,532)
Volunteering hours over the past year
Poulin (2014; Study 1) All participants in which mortality
data were available for both
members of the couple
Wave 1 (846); mortality to 1994 AEGHR
National Health
Interview Survey,
Supplement on Aging
(SOA)
Community-living residents of U.S.,
aged 55⫹
1. 7-year mortality follow-up on
people interviewed in 1984
(16,148)
Volunteering (yes/no)
Rogers (1997) All participants who consented to
being followed via the National
Death Index
Wave 1 (15,938); mortality to 1991 AEGHMR
Cross-Sectional and
Longitudinal Aging
Study (CALAS)
Jewish Israeli residents aged 75–94 1. 5- to 8-year mortality follow-up on
people interviewed between 1989
and 1992 (1,633)
Volunteering (yes/no)
Shmotkin et al. (2003) All participants with individual (not
proxy) responses and with
volunteering data
Wave 1 (1,343); mortality by 1997 AEGIR
Survey of Health,
Ageing, and
Retirement in
Europe (SHARE)
d
European (and Israeli) residents
aged 50⫹
1. 2004–2005 (30,037) Volunteer or charity work within previous
4 weeks2. 2006–2007 (33,536)
3. 2008–2009 (26,415)
4. 2010 (not available)
Wahrendorf & Siegrist
(2010) All participants with complete data Waves 1–2 (10,309) AEGHIMW
Note. Bold font indicates prospective cohort studies from which data were drawn.
a
Control variables: A ⫽age; E ⫽education; G ⫽gender; H ⫽health, disability, or physical ability; I ⫽income; M ⫽marital or partnered status; R ⫽
race or ethnicity; W ⫽work/employment status.
b
Sample size varied depending on the analysis.
c
The AHEAD and HRS studies were merged in
1998.
d
Information about the sample sizes in the AHEAD and HRS studies obtained from http://hrsonline.isr.umich.edu, and for the SHARE study from
http://www.share-project.org
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10 ANDERSON ET AL.

of depression (cross-sectional: Hunter & Linn, 1980–1981;
Krause, Herzog, & Baker, 1992; McMunn et al., 2009; Wahren-
dorf, von dem Knesebeck, & Siegrist, 2006; prospective cohort:
ACL: Kim & Pai, 2010; Li, 2007; Li & Ferraro, 2005, 2006;
Morrow-Howell, Hinterlong, Rozario, & Tang, 2003; Musick &
Wilson, 2003; Thoits & Hewitt, 2001; AHEAD: Fonda & Herzog,
2001; Lum & Lightfoot, 2005; HRS: McDonnall, 2011; Choi &
Bohman, 2007; Hao, 2008; LSOA–II: Hong, Hasche, & Bowland,
2009; Florida Retirement Study: Kahana et al. 2013; Experience
Corps: Hong & Morrow-Howell, 2010). The one exception to this
association between volunteering and lower levels of depression is
a cross-sectional study reported by Shmotkin et al. (2003), who
found that although their participants who volunteered reported
less depression than those who did not volunteer, this difference
was reversed after controlling for sociodemographic variables, the
self-reported amount of physical and other everyday activity in
participants’ lives, and other functional markers including subjec-
tive health, social support, and life satisfaction.
Many studies have also found volunteering to be associated with
higher levels and improvements in seniors’ positive affect or
happiness (descriptive: Larkin, Sadler, & Mahler, 2005; cross-
sectional: Dulin, Gavala, Stephens, Kostick, & McDonald, 2012;
McIntosh & Danigelis, 1995; Okun, Rios, Crawford, & Levy,
2011; Pilkington et al., 2012; Windsor et al., 2008; but see Carp,
1968; prospective cohort: ACL: Thoits & Hewitt, 2001; AHEAD:
Fonda & Herzog, 2001; other: Kahana et al., 2013; but see Menec,
2003). Likewise, volunteering has been associated with greater life
satisfaction (descriptive: Jirovec & Hyduk, 1998; Newman, Va-
sudev, & Onawola, 1985; but see Young & Janke, 2013; cross-
sectional: Aquino, Russell, Cutrona, & Altmaier, 1996; Bond,
1982; Hunter & Linn, 1980-81; McMunn et al., 2009; Pilkington
et al., 2012; Windsor et al., 2008; but see Shmotkin et al., 2003;
prospective cohort: ACL: Thoits & Hewitt, 2001; Van Willigen,
2000; other: Kahana et al., 2013; but see Menec, 2003). However,
it should be noted that the bulk of the evidence in favor of an
association between senior volunteering and both positive affect
and life satisfaction comes from cross-sectional rather than pro-
spective cohort or randomized controlled trials.
While improvements in self-esteem or a sense of mastery asso-
ciated with volunteering in seniors have not been found in the two
cross-sectional studies that have included these measures (Hunter
& Linn, 1980–1981; Krause et al., 1992), these associations have
been identified in both descriptive and prospective cohort studies
(descriptive: Arnstein, Vidal, Wells-Federman, Morgan, & Cau-
dill, 2002; Hainsworth & Barlow, 2001; Morrow-Howell, Hong, &
Tang, 2009; Newman et al., 1985; prospective cohort: ACL: Li,
2007; Thoits & Hewitt, 2001; but see Han & Hong, 2013). We
included two other studies in Table 5 under this umbrella of
self-esteem or mastery, as they measured other closely related
concepts. In the descriptive study by Celdrán and Villar (2007),
only seniors volunteering for social services or cultural organiza-
tions, and not for a management organization, endorsed feeling
useful and self-fulfilled as benefits of their volunteering. Similarly,
in the cross-sectional study by Okun et al. (2011), seniors who
volunteered reported greater resilience than did their nonvolun-
teering counterparts.
It is difficult to say whether the exceptions noted above asso-
ciating volunteering with depression, positive affect, life satisfac-
tion, and self-esteem or mastery are due to sampling issues (or
some other design feature) or simply represent Type II error, but
aspects of two studies are worth noting. Menec (2003) did not find
that volunteering at baseline predicted happiness or life satisfac-
tion 6 years later. However, in that study volunteering status was
determined by whether participants reported having volunteered
within the week prior to assessment; 1 week may be too short a
time frame in which to validly capture whether one volunteers or
not, as a number of factors could have prevented otherwise regular
volunteers from fulfilling their role in the prior week. It is also
possible that the 6-year follow-up period was too long; perhaps an
association between volunteering and happiness and/or life satis-
faction would have been present earlier. Young and Janke (2013)
surveyed 195 volunteering seniors at two time points (of an un-
specified interval), using a 3-point scale (not at all, some, and a
great deal) to assess the extent the volunteers anticipated they
would gain (and then had gained) on 10 items assessing psycho-
social, physical, and cognitive issues. The fact that they reported
no changes on any item may be due either to the fact that the
baseline measures reflected not the participants’ current state but
their anticipated gains or to the use of a potentially insensitive
3-point scale.
Improvements in composite measures of psychological well-
being have been reported in prospective cohort studies of volun-
Table 4
Characteristics of Experience Corps Studies on the Benefits of Volunteering Among Older Adults
Study nvolunteers
(nonvolunteers) Age range Control
variables
a
Carlson et al. (2009) 8(9) M⫽68 n/a
b
Carlson et al. (2008) 62 (48) M⫽69 AE
Fried et al. (2004) 70 (48) 60–86 (M⫽69) n/a
c
Hong & Morrow-Howell (2010) EC: 167 (0) EC: 51–83 AEGHIMRW
HRS: 77 (90) HRS: 51–84
Tan et al. (2009) EC: 71 (WHAS: 150) 65–86 AEHIM
Tan et al. (2006) 59 (54) 59–86 AEGHR
Note. EC ⫽Experience Corps; HRS ⫽Health & Retirement Study; WHAS ⫽Women’s Health and Aging
Studies.
a
Control variables: A ⫽age; E ⫽education; G ⫽gender; H ⫽health, disability, or physical ability; I ⫽income; M ⫽
marital or partnered status; R ⫽race or ethnicity; W ⫽work/employment status.
b
Volunteer and nonvolunteer
groups did not differ in AEMR.
c
Volunteer and nonvolunteer groups did not differ in AEIGMRW.
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11
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

Table 5
Summary of Results on the Effects of Volunteering Associated With Psychosocial Functioning
Study
Psychosocial
Depression Affect/
happiness Life
satisfaction Self-esteem/
mastery Psychological
well-being Quality of life Self-
definition Social support/
network
Descriptive
Arnstein et al. (2002) ŒŒ
Barron et al. (2009)
Celdrán & Villar (2009) 
Cook (2011)
Cook (2013) Œ
Hainsworth & Barlow (2001) ŒŒ
Jirovec & Hyduk (1998) 
Kerschner & Rousseau (2008) 
Larkin et al. (2005) Œ
Misener et al. (2010) Œ
Morrow-Howell et al. (2012)
Morrow-Howell et al. (2009) Œ
Morrow-Howell et al. (1999) 
Narushima (2005) ŒŒ
Newman et al. (1985) Œ
Piercy et al. (2011) ŒŒ
Young & Janke (2013) ee
Cross-sectional
Aquino et al. (1996) 
Bond (1982) 
Carp (1968) e e
Dulin et al. (2012) 
Hunter & Linn (1980–1981) e
Krause et al. (1992) e
McIntosh & Danigelis (1995) 
McMunn et al. (2009)  
Okun et al. (2011) 
Pilkington et al. (2012) 
Shmotkin et al. (2003) ee 
Wahrendorf et al. (2006) 
Warburton & Peel (2008)
Windsor et al. (2008) 
Prospective cohort
ACL
Han & Hong (2013) e
Kim & Pai (2010) 
Li (2007) 
Li & Ferraro (2005) 
Li & Ferraro (2006) 
Morrow-Howell et al. (2003) 
Musick et al. (1999)
Musick & Wilson (2003) 
Tang (2009)
Thoits & Hewitt (2001)  
Van Willigen (2000) 
AHEAD
Fonda & Herzog (2001) 
Lum & Lightfoot (2005) 
Luoh & Herzog (2002)
HRS
Burr et al. (2011)
Choi & Bohman (2007) 
Hao (2008) 
Lee et al. (2011)
McDonnall (2011) 
Tavares et al. (2013) (table continues)
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12 ANDERSON ET AL.

teering (Choi & Kim, 2011; WLS: Piliavin & Siegl, 2007), and a
number of studies have reported an association between volunteer-
ing and better maintenance of quality of life (descriptive: Morrow-
Howell et al., 2009; cross-sectional: McMunn et al., 2009; Wah-
rendorf et al., 2006; prospective cohort: Wahrendorf & Siegrist,
2010). In three descriptive qualitative studies, seniors reported
existential benefits of volunteering; participants reported that their
volunteering gave them the opportunity to refine their self-
definition and reexamine what was important in their lives (Cook,
2013; Narushima, 2005; Piercy, Cheek, & Teemant, 2011).
Volunteerism among seniors has been related to improvements
in social support and social networks. Descriptive studies have
consistently found senior volunteers to report that their volunteer-
ing allowed them to meet new people, make friends, and develop
a sense of community (Arnstein et al., 2002; Hainsworth & Bar-
low, 2001; Kerschner & Rousseau, 2008; Misener, Doherty, &
Hamm-Kerwin, 2010; Morrow-Howell, Kinnevy, & Mann, 1999;
Narushima, 2005; Piercy et al., 2011; but see Young & Janke,
2013). This same association between seniors’ volunteering and
improved social networks or support has been reported in cross-
sectional studies (Aquino et al., 1996; Shmotkin et al., 2003; but
see Carp, 1968). Moreover, measures of the quantity and quality of
social support completely mediated the above-mentioned greater
life satisfaction among seniors who volunteered compared to se-
niors who did not volunteer reported by Aquino et al. (1996) and
Pilkington et al. (2012). These results suggest that there may be a
select group of seniors who enjoy a healthy level of social support,
leading to greater life satisfaction, thereby giving them the foun-
dation needed to go out and seek volunteer positions. Although
cross-sectional studies cannot address these questions of causal
direction, the Experience Corps study results showed that com-
pared to waitlist controls, volunteers reported that over the course
of their volunteering they experienced a significant increase in the
number of people they could turn to for help (Fried et al., 2004).
This suggests a potential causal effect of volunteering on the
quality of social relations. Nevertheless, the attrition in the control
group may mitigate firm conclusions about the effects of volun-
teering on feelings of social support. We return to the more general
issue of whether particular variables cause one to volunteer or
change as a function of volunteering (or both) later in this review.
In addition to these common findings on the psychosocial ben-
efits of seniors’ volunteering, a number of additional features of
these results are worth noting. First, evidence from the prospective
cohort study of Kahana et al. (2013) suggests that the positive
associations between seniors’ volunteering and reductions in
symptoms of depression, along with improvements in positive
affect and life satisfaction are independent of participants’ altru-
istic attitudes. Those authors entered simultaneously into an ordi-
nal logistic regression analysis (a) hours spent volunteering per
week, (b) a measure of altruistic attitudes, (c) the amount of
informal help one provided to others in the last year, along with (d)
sociodemographic control variables. The results showed that more
Table 5 (continued)
Study
Psychosocial
Depression Affect/
happiness Life
satisfaction Self-esteem/
mastery Psychological
well-being Quality of life Self-
definition Social support/
network
LSOA/LSOA II
Harris & Thoresen (2005)
Hong et al. (2009) 
Sabin (1993)
WLS
Konrath et al. (2012)
Piliavin & Siegl (2007) 
Other
Ayalon (2008)
Choi & Kim (2011) 
Hsu (2007)
Jung et al. (2010)
Kahana et al. (2013) 
Menec (2003) ee
Okun et al. (2010)
Oman et al. (1999)
Poulin (2014)
Rogers (1996)
Wahrendorf & Siegrist (2010) 
Randomized controlled
Experience Corps
Carlson et al. (2009)
Carlson et al. (2008)
Fried et al. (2004) 
Hong & Morrow-Howell (2010) 
Tan et al. (2009)
Tan et al. (2006)
Note. Triangles ⫽qualitative data; squares ⫽subjective data; circles ⫽objective data; filled shapes ⫽positive relationship with volunteering; unfilled
shapes ⫽nonsignificant relationship with volunteering. ACL ⫽Americans’ Changing Lives; AHEAD ⫽Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest
Old; HRS ⫽Health and Retirement Study; LSOA ⫽Longitudinal Study of Aging; WLS ⫽Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.
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13
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

Table 6
Summary of Results on the Effects of Volunteering Associated With Physical Functioning
Study
Physical
Health Functional
limitations Active
living Physical
activity Strength Walking
speed
Diagnosed
medical
conditions
Nursing
home
residency Frailty Hip
fracture Hypertension Mortality
Descriptive
Arnstein et al. (2002)
Barron et al. (2009) 
Celdrán & Villar (2009)
Cook (2011)
Cook (2013)
Hainsworth & Barlow
(2001)
Jirovec & Hyduk (1998) e
Kerschner & Rousseau
(2008)
Larkin et al. (2005)
Misener et al. (2010) ŒŒ
Morrow-Howell et al.
(2012) 
Morrow-Howell et al.
(2009) ŒŒ
Morrow-Howell et al.
(1999) Œ
Narushima (2005)
Newman et al. (1985)
Piercy et al. (2011)
Young & Janke (2013) e
Cross-sectional
Aquino et al. (1996)
Bond (1982)
Carp (1968)
Dulin et al. (2012)
Hunter & Linn (1980–
1981) 
Krause et al. (1992)
McIntosh & Danigelis
(1995)
McMunn et al. (2009)
Okun et al. (2011)
Pilkington et al. (2012)
Shmotkin et al. (2003) e
Wahrendorf et al. (2006)
Warburton & Peel (2008) 
Windsor et al. (2008)
Prospective cohort
ACL
Han & Hong (2013)
Kim & Pai (2010)
Li (2007)
Li & Ferraro (2005)
Li & Ferraro (2006) 
Morrow-Howell et al.
(2003) 
Musick et al. (1999) 
Musick & Wilson (2003)
Tang (2009)  e
Thoits & Hewitt (2001) 
Van Willigen (2000) 
AHEAD
Fonda & Herzog (2001)
Lum & Lightfoot (2005)  eŒ
Luoh & Herzog (2002)  
HRS
Burr et al. (2011) 
Choi & Bohman (2007)
Hao (2008)
Lee et al. (2011) 
McDonnall (2011)
Tavares et al. (2013) 
(table continues)
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14 ANDERSON ET AL.

hours spent volunteering was significantly predictive of less de-
pressive symptomatology, greater positive affect, and better life
satisfaction levels. Altruistic attitudes, on the other hand, were
only predictive of greater positive affect levels. These results
suggest that the link between seniors’ volunteering and their men-
tal health outcomes is at least partly independent from their proso-
cial attitudes.
Second, a number of studies have identified individual differ-
ences in the psychosocial benefits associated with volunteering.
One prospective cohort study found a positive association between
volunteering and mood in women, but not in men (Choi & Bo-
hman, 2007). McDonnall (2011) found that elevations in depres-
sive symptoms among seniors with dual sensory loss (vision and
hearing) were mitigated among those who volunteered. Okun et al.
(2011) found that the greater positive affect and resilience among
senior volunteers compared to their nonvolunteering counterparts
was even larger among those with more chronic health conditions.
Together, these last two results support the notion that more
vulnerable individuals may benefit the most from volunteering.
Third, feeling appreciated or needed as a volunteer appears to
amplify the relationship between volunteering and psychosocial
well-being. This has been shown for the relationship between
volunteering and depression (Wahrendorf et al., 2006), life satis-
faction (McMunn et al., 2009), psychological well-being (Piliavin
& Siegl, 2007), and quality of life (McMunn et al., 2009; Wah-
rendorf et al., 2006). In line with these results is the theme reported
in the qualitative study by Larkin et al. (2005), regarding the
importance of being appreciated and valued as a volunteer.
Fourth, another trend emerging from these studies (and one that
will be recapitulated when we discuss the association between
volunteering and physical outcomes) is a nonlinear relationship
between number of volunteer hours and psychosocial outcome.
Depression (Morrow-Howell et al., 2003), positive affect (Windsor
et al., 2008), and life satisfaction (Pilkington et al., 2012; Windsor
et al., 2008) have been found to improve with increasing number
of volunteer hours, but only up to a point, after which the benefits
diminish. Van Willigen (2000) reported a linear relationship be-
tween the number of volunteer hours and seniors’ life satisfaction,
but that study used an ordinal scale of volunteer hours in which the
highest level was 160 annual hr or more, which is considerably
lower than the ranges captured in other studies. While most of this
evidence comes from cross-sectional rather than prospective co-
hort study designs (with the exception of Morrow-Howell et al.,
2003), these studies suggest a threshold effect in which there is
some optimal level of volunteering beyond which the benefits no
longer accrue. On average, these papers suggest that the optimal
level of volunteering at which to enjoy these psychosocial benefits
is approximately 100 annual hr (2 to 3 hr per week).
In summary, there is now considerable evidence from varying
study designs that volunteering among older adults is associated
with benefits to a range of psychosocial health measures, but these
benefits may depend on a moderate level of volunteering and the
Table 6 (continued)
Study
Physical
Health Functional
limitations Active
living Physical
activity Strength Walking
speed
Diagnosed
medical
conditions
Nursing
home
residency Frailty Hip
fracture Hypertension Mortality
LSOA/LSOA II
Harris & Thoresen
(2005) 
Hong et al. (2009)
Sabin (1993)  
WLS
Konrath et al. (2012) 
Piliavin & Siegl (2007)
Other
Ayalon (2008) Œ
Choi & Kim (2011)
Hsu (2007) Œ
Jung et al. (2010) 
Kahana et al. (2013)
Menec (2003)  
Okun et al. (2010) 
Oman et al. (1999) 
Poulin (2014) 
Rogers (1996) Œ
Wahrendorf & Siegrist
(2010)
Randomized controlled
Experience Corps
Carlson et al. (2009)
Carlson et al. (2008)
Fried et al. (2004)  
Hong & Morrow-Howell
(2010) e
Tan et al. (2009) 
Tan et al. (2006) 
Note. Triangles ⫽qualitative data; squares ⫽subjective data; circles ⫽objective data; filled shapes ⫽positive relationship with volunteering; unfilled
shapes ⫽nonsignificant relationship with volunteering. ACL ⫽Americans’ Changing Lives; AHEAD ⫽Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest
Old; HRS ⫽Health and Retirement Study; LSOA ⫽Longitudinal Study of Aging; WLS ⫽Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
15
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

Table 7
Summary of Results on the Effects of Volunteering Associated With Cognitive Functioning
Study
Cognitive
New learning Mental status Memory Executive functioning Frontal lobe activity
Descriptive
Arnstein et al. (2002)
Barron et al. (2009)
Celdrán & Villar (2009)
Cook (2011) Œ
Cook (2013)
Hainsworth & Barlow (2001)
Jirovec & Hyduk (1998)
Kerschner & Rousseau (2008)
Larkin et al. (2005)
Misener et al. (2010)
Morrow-Howell et al. (2012)
Morrow-Howell et al. (2009)
Morrow-Howell et al. (1999) Œ
Narushima (2005) Œ
Newman et al. (1985)
Piercy et al. (2011)
Young & Janke (2013) e
Cross-sectional
Aquino et al. (1996)
Bond (1982)
Carp (1968)
Dulin et al. (2012)
Hunter & Linn (1980–1981)
Krause et al. (1992)
McIntosh& Danigelis (1995)
McMunn et al. (2009)
Okun et al. (2011)
Pilkington et al. (2012)
Shmotkin et al. (2003) 
Wahrendorf et al. (2006)
Warburton & Peel (2008)
Windsor et al. (2008)
Prospective cohort
ACL
Han & Hong (2013)
Kim & Pai (2010)
Li (2007)
Li & Ferraro (2005)
Li & Ferraro (2006)
Morrow-Howell et al. (2003)
Musick et al. (1999)
Musick & Wilson (2003)
Tang (2009)
Thoits & Hewitt (2001)
Van Willigen (2000)
AHEAD
Fonda & Herzog (2001)
Lum & Lightfoot (2005)
Luoh & Herzog (2002)
HRS
Burr et al. (2011)
Choi & Bohman (2007)
Hao (2008)
Lee et al. (2011)
McDonnall (2011)
Tavares et al. (2013)
LSOA/LSOA II
Harris & Thoresen (2005)
Hong et al. (2009)
Sabin (1993) (table continues)
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16 ANDERSON ET AL.

feeling that one’s efforts are appreciated. More work is needed to
examine individual differences in the benefits associated with
volunteering, psychosocial and otherwise. The available evidence
points to possible differences between the benefits enjoyed by
women and men, and by those with and without sensory loss, but
there is a host of other potentially important variables that also
deserve further research attention, including urban versus rural
seniors and seniors with intact versus impaired cognitive status.
Physical Benefits Associated With Volunteering
Among Older Adults
Results of the physical benefits of volunteering are shown in
Table 6. Evidence about the physical benefits of volunteering
experienced by seniors comes from both self-report (qualitative
and subjective) and objective evidence. In the most general terms,
cross-sectional studies have reported that older adults who volun-
teer report better physical health than do their nonvolunteering
counterparts (Hunter & Linn, 1980–1981; Shmotkin et al., 2003).
Moreover, improvements in self-reported physical health associ-
ated with volunteering have been identified in both descriptive
(Misener et al., 2010; Morrow-Howell et al., 1999, 2009; but see
Jirovec & Hyduk, 1998; Young & Janke, 2013) and prospective
studies (ACL: Morrow-Howell et al., 2003; Tang, 2009; Thoits &
Hewitt, 2001; Van Willigen, 2000; AHEAD: Lum & Lightfoot,
2005; Luoh & Herzog, 2002). Using data from the ACL study, Van
Willigen (2000) reported that improvements in physical health
over time were more than 2.5 times greater among volunteers over
the age of 60 than they were in their younger volunteering coun-
terparts. The prospective studies have also identified increasing
improvements in physical health ratings with increasing volunteer
hours (ACL: Tang, 2009), up to a point, beyond which the benefit
tapers off (ACL: Morrow-Howell et al., 2003; Thoits & Hewitt,
2001; Van Willigen, 2000; AHEAD: Luoh & Herzog, 2002; Lum
& Lightfoot, 2005). There are three exceptions to this pattern of
volunteering being associated with better self-reported health. The
descriptive studies by Jirovec and Hyduk (1998) and Young and
Janke (2013) combined questions about number of days of illness
and functional capacity and used a gross 3-point scale, respec-
tively, and one could argue that neither is a particularly sensitive
measure of overall health. In addition, in one report of the Expe-
rience Corps data, participants in that study showed smaller de-
clines in physical health than a matched comparison sample from
the HRS study, but these differences were not significant (Hong &
Morrow-Howell, 2010). However, associations between volun-
teering and maintenance of physical health may have been under-
estimated in that comparison, as the researchers did not exclude
participants who volunteered from the HRS comparison sample.
Overall, these results point toward a positive association between
volunteering and the overall physical health of older adults.
Similar benefits of volunteering have been reported for mainte-
nance of functional independence (basic and instrumental activi-
ties of daily living). Prospective cohort studies (ACL: Li & Fer-
raro, 2006; Morrow-Howell et al., 2003; Tang, 2009; AHEAD:
Lum & Lightfoot, 2005; LSOA: Sabin, 1993; Aging in Manitoba:
Menec, 2003; MacArthur Study of Successful Aging: Jung, Gru-
enewald, Seeman, & Sarkisian, 2010), and the Experience Corps
study (Hong & Morrow-Howell, 2010) have all reported associa-
tions between volunteering and reductions in functional limita-
Table 7 (continued)
Study
Cognitive
New learning Mental status Memory Executive functioning Frontal lobe activity
WLS
Konrath et al. (2012)
Piliavin & Siegl (2007)
Other
Ayalon (2008)
Choi & Kim (2011)
Hsu (2007) Œ
Jung et al. (2010)
Kahana et al. (2013)
Menec (2003)
Okun et al. (2010)
Oman et al. (1999)
Poulin (2014)
Rogers (1996)
Wahrendorf & Siegrist (2010)
Randomized controlled
Experience Corps
Carlson et al. (2009) 
Carlson et al. (2008) 
Fried et al. (2004)
Hong & Morrow-Howell (2010)
Tan et al. (2009)
Tan et al. (2006)
Note. Triangles ⫽qualitative data; squares ⫽subjective data; circles ⫽objective data; filled shapes ⫽positive relationship with volunteering; unfilled
shapes ⫽nonsignificant relationship with volunteering. ACL ⫽Americans’ Changing Lives; AHEAD ⫽Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest
Old; HRS ⫽Health and Retirement Study; LSOA ⫽Longitudinal Study of Aging; WLS ⫽Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
17
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

tions. Indeed, in the ACL study, this relationship was magnified
with increased volunteer hours (Tang, 2009), and the prototypical
relationship between increasing age and increasing functional de-
pendency was found to be weaker among volunteers than nonvol-
unteers (Morrow-Howell et al., 2003).
In a descriptive study, 10% of senior volunteers endorsed no-
tions such as active living as the most beneficial aspect of their
volunteering, and 95% agreed that volunteering enabled them to
participate in meaningful activities (Morrow-Howell et al., 1999).
Likewise, seniors who volunteer report increases in the amount of
activity in which they engage in their everyday lives (Misener et
al., 2010; Morrow-Howell et al., 2009; Morrow-Howell, Hong,
McCrary, & Blinne, 2012). Correspondingly, the Experience
Corps study has shown that volunteering is associated with in-
creases in the estimated amount of physical activity in which
seniors engage in their everyday lives (Fried et al., 2004; Tan, Xue,
Li, Carlson, & Fried, 2006), and that these gains are maintained 3
years later (Tan et al., 2009). Likely associated with this
volunteering-related increase in physical activity are the findings
from the Experience Corps study of improved self-reported
strength (Barron et al., 2009; Fried et al., 2004) and objectively
measured walking speed (Barron et al., 2009; Fried et al., 2004)
among volunteers over time. However, relationships between vol-
unteering and grip strength from this study were mixed (Barron et
al., 2009; Fried et al., 2004).
Taken together, these results suggest that volunteering is asso-
ciated with health improvements and increased physical activity
and fitness, changes that one would expect to offer protection
against a variety of health conditions. Indeed, a moderate amount
of volunteering has been shown to be related to less hypertension
(Burr, Tavares, & Mutchler, 2011)—at least among Caucasian
volunteers (Tavares, Burr, & Mutchler, 2013)—over time in the
HRS prospective cohort study, and fewer hip fractures among
seniors who volunteer than among their matched nonvolunteering
peers (Warburton & Peel, 2008). Neither the number of self-
reported physician-diagnosed medical conditions (Shmotkin et al.,
2003; Tang, 2009; Lum & Lightfoot, 2005) nor rates of admission
to a nursing home (Lum & Lightfoot, 2005) have been found to
associate with volunteering. Nevertheless, other studies have re-
peatedly (with a few exceptions) found volunteering to be in-
versely associated with the final arbiter of health—mortality—
within the period of time prospectively observed (ACL: Musick,
Herzog, & House, 1999; AHEAD: Lum & Lightfoot, 2005; Luoh
& Herzog, 2002; HRS: Lee, Steinman, & Tan, 2011; LSOA/LSOA
II: Harris & Thoresen, 2005; Sabin, 1993; WLS: Konrath, Fuhrel-
Forbis, Lou, & Brown, 2012; other: Ayalon, 2008; Okun, August,
Rook, & Newsom, 2010; Oman, Thoresen, & McMahon, 1999;
Poulin, 2014; Rogers, 1996; Shmotkin et al., 2003). Konrath et al.
(2012) reported that the protective effect of volunteering on mor-
tality was evident only for those who volunteered for other-
oriented reasons (e.g., for social connections and for altruistic
purposes) and not self-oriented reasons (e.g., to escape one’s
troubles, to feel better about oneself). In a somewhat similar vein,
Poulin (2014) found that volunteering buffered the relationship
between stressful life events and mortality over a 6-year period,
but only among those older adults who volunteered a below-
median number of hours and had positive views of others. Two
studies failed to find an association between volunteering and
mortality. In the study by Hsu (2007), only 4.4% of the participants
volunteered, so this study may have lacked the power to detect the
association. In the other exception (Menec, 2003), participants
indicated whether they had volunteered in the last week, which we
have already suggested may not be a sufficient window in which
to ascertain volunteering status. Indeed, in a recent meta-analysis
Okun, Yeung, and Brown (2013) reported that volunteering is
associated with a 24% (95% CI [16%, 31%]) reduction in mortality
risk among older adults, after adjusting for age, sex, physical
health, and 11 other relevant variables, leading the authors to
conclude, “It is no longer a question of whether volunteering is
predictive of reduced mortality risk; rather, our results suggest that
the volunteering-mortality association is reliable, and that the
magnitude of the relationship is sizeable” (p. 13).
In summary, the evidence is mounting that volunteering is
associated with positive health benefits for seniors and reduced
mortality risk. Moreover, the threshold effect that was seen for
psychosocial outcomes appears to be at play for physical health as
well, with beneficial effects evident at a moderate but not neces-
sarily high-intensity commitment to volunteering. The research
landscape linking volunteering and health is still largely unex-
plored. Most notably, not a single study has examined the associ-
ation between volunteering and risk of dementia or the association
between volunteering and a host of other health conditions that put
seniors at higher risk for dementia such as diabetes and stroke.
Cognitive Benefits Associated With Volunteering
Among Older Adults
Results of the cognitive benefits of volunteering are shown in
Table 7, where the most obvious feature is that very few studies
have examined the benefits of volunteering on cognitive function-
ing in older adults, despite the fact that older adults report new
learning as one of the primary benefits they experience as a
function of their volunteer work (Cook, 2011; Morrow-Howell et
al., 1999; Narushima, 2005; but see Young & Janke, 2013). In a
prospective cohort study, Hsu (2007) reported no significant effect
of volunteering on 6-year changes in mental status after controlling
for sociodemographic and health factors, but we remind readers
that only 4.4% of that sample volunteered. In a cross-sectional
study Shmotkin et al. (2003) reported worse mental status among
senior volunteers than their nonvolunteering counterparts, after
controlling for sociodemographic variables and indicators of de-
gree of physical and leisure activity in participants’ lives. In
contrast to this perplexing finding is the evidence from the Expe-
rience Corps study: When Carlson, Saczynski, et al. (2008) re-
stricted their analysis to those participants with executive dysfunc-
tion in the first assessment, they found that improvements from the
first to second assessment in executive functioning—specifically
on the ability to switch between two task sets (Trail Making Test
Part B)—and in verbal (but not visual) learning and memory, were
greater in the group assigned to volunteer compared to the waitlist
control group. Moreover, in a small functional neuroimaging
study, the beneficial effects of volunteering on executive function-
ing were replicated, in this case on a flanker task sensitive to
cognitive control, and were accompanied by significantly greater
increases from the first to second scanning session in activation of
the prefrontal cortex compared to changes in the group of waitlist
control participants (Carlson et al., 2009).
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18 ANDERSON ET AL.

Although investigation into the effects of volunteering on cog-
nitive aging is still in its infancy, these initial reports provide
cautious support for the proposition that volunteering may have
positive effects on cognitive functioning among older adults. We
encourage investigators to include more objective measures of
cognitive functioning in future studies. Particularly interesting
would be the inclusion of a more comprehensive battery of neu-
ropsychological tests, so that the association of volunteering with
the risks of various forms of dementia and its precursor, mild
cognitive impairment, could be ascertained. Findings that volun-
teering could delay or prevent diagnosis of such neurocognitive
disorders would have tremendous implications for the economic
and psychological costs of these devastating disorders.
Summary of the Benefits Associated With
Volunteering Among Older Adults
The reviewed evidence demonstrates that volunteering among
older adults is related to better psychosocial, physical, and cogni-
tive health, as well as better functional performance. The majority
of investigations to date have focused on psychosocial outcomes,
where reliable associations have been reported between volunteer-
ing and amelioration of depressive symptoms, improved life sat-
isfaction, and enhanced social support. Of note, with the exception
of the association between volunteering and depression, where
there is support from all study design types, the evidence of senior
volunteering being related to broader psychosocial health has
come primarily from descriptive and cross-sectional study designs.
In the physical domain, volunteering has most consistently been
associated with better overall health and fewer functional limita-
tions; these results are supported by respected prospective cohort
studies and, in the case of functional limitations, the Experience
Corps randomized control trial. Moreover, the evidence that vol-
unteering is associated with delayed mortality is strong. Investi-
gations into the effects of volunteering on specific health condi-
tions are beginning to emerge and provide promising leads for
future research. Finally, relatively little research has focused on the
cognitive effects of volunteering, although the evidence from the
Experience Corps study suggests that seniors may experience
improvements in memory and executive functioning. Common
themes indicate that the protective benefits associated with volun-
teering are amplified if volunteers feel reciprocity (i.e., their work
is appreciated and “matters”), contribute their time for prosocial
reasons, and make a moderate but not excessive commitment to
volunteering.
A Model of the Protective Effects of
Volunteering Among Older Adults Against
Functional Decline and Dementia
At this point, we return to our theoretical model and discuss
where the existing evidence supports our model, and where evi-
dence is lacking and more research is needed. As a reminder, the
thesis of our model is that volunteering increases social, physical,
and cognitive activity (to varying degrees depending on charac-
teristics of the volunteer placement) which, through biological and
psychological mechanisms, leads to improved functioning and
ultimately reduces functional decline and dementia. What is the
evidence for this model?
Supposition 1: Volunteering Increases Social, Physical,
and Cognitive Activity to Varying Degrees Depending
on Requirements of the Volunteer Placement
Our first supposition is that a key factor modulating the asso-
ciation between volunteering and positive health outcomes is the
extent to which volunteers’ specific placements require social,
physical, and cognitive activity. However, thus far, investigations
have been limited to fairly rudimentary analyses of health out-
comes as a function of the number of hours participants commit to
volunteering, the number of volunteer roles participants hold, and
the general type of volunteering. For the first type of analysis, the
results generally show increases in benefits with volunteer hours,
often with a threshold effect beyond which benefits no longer
accrue, as reviewed earlier. Results from analyses of the benefits
of volunteering as a function of the number of volunteer roles are
mixed. Role theory (Chambré, 1984; Moen et al., 1992) suggests
that multiple roles would be more beneficial, a position that is
supported by the results of Oman et al. (1999) and Piliavin and
Siegl (2007), but not by those of Morrow-Howell et al. (2003) or
Musick et al. (1999). For the third type of analysis, Windsor et al.
(2008) categorized their participants’ volunteering into 11 differ-
ent types (e.g., fundraising, teaching, coaching, preparing food)
but found that only one type differentially related to psychosocial
outcome: Volunteering in management or committee roles was
related to greater positive affect, but only for women. In contrast
to that finding were the results from the descriptive study by
Celdrán and Villar (2007), who found that volunteering was asso-
ciated with an increased sense of self-esteem and mastery, but only
for those volunteering in social services or cultural organizations,
not in management organizations. Some investigators have re-
ported greater beneficial effects for those seniors volunteering for
religious than nonreligious causes (McIntosh & Danigelis, 1995;
Musick & Wilson, 2003; Oman et al., 1999), but these results were
not replicated by Morrow-Howell et al. (2003).
Although volunteer hours, the number of volunteer roles, and
the type of volunteering all likely modulate the amount of activity
added to participants’ lives, they are indirect measures of activity.
Knowing that someone volunteers 150 annual hr, or that she
volunteers in two roles, or that she volunteers for religious causes
provides no specific information about how much social, physical,
or cognitive activity her volunteer roles provide. The fact that the
benefits of volunteering have not been investigated as a function of
the specific type (i.e., social, physical, cognitive) and degree of
activity is surprising, because researchers have promoted consid-
eration of such variability in analyses of the effects of volunteering
on health outcomes (Gottlieb & Gillespie, 2008; Morrow-Howell,
2010).
There is a parallel literature that can be drawn on to inform how
researchers might approach incorporating the type and amount of
volunteering activity into analyses of its effects on health out-
comes. Specifically, there is now substantial evidence that the
complexity of one’s paid occupational work relates to cognitive
functioning and dementia risk in later life (Andel, Kåreholt,
Parker, Thorslund, & Gatz, 2007; Andel et al., 2005; Bickel &
Kurz, 2009; Bosma et al., 2003; Finkel, Andel, Gatz, & Pedersen,
2009; Jorm et al., 1998; Karp et al., 2009; Kröger et al., 2008;
Potter, Helms, & Plassman, 2008; Potter, Plassman, Helms, Foster,
& Edwards, 2006; Qiu et al., 2003; Schooler, Mulata, & Oates,
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19
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

1999; Singh-Manoux et al., 2011; Smyth et al., 2004; Wight,
Aneshensel, & Seeman, 2002).
A common current approach to relating occupation to neuro-
cognitive health is to match participants’ prior occupations to a
standard occupational code in the U.S. Department of Labor’s
(1977) Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), which, among
other things, contains specific ratings made by means of extensive
on-site job analyses. Three key ratings are the complexity of each
occupation with respect to data, people, and things, based on work
by Fine (1955; Fine & Cronshaw, 1999). The first two complexity
ratings map nicely on to the cognitive and social complexity of the
job, but it should be noted that jobs with high social complexity,
involving abilities such as mentoring and negotiating, also require
higher cognitive skills, and indeed these two complexity ratings
are positively correlated (Andel et al., 2005; Finkel et al., 2009;
Kröger et al., 2008). Complexity with things refers to the use of
equipment, which often requires motor skills. To capture the
physical complexity of occupations, some have used other occu-
pation measures in the DOT, such as the strength required by a
worker to perform a job (Potter et al., 2006; Potter et al. 2008;
Smyth et al., 2004).
2
The modal result of papers using the DOT or comparable
approaches is that high complexity of work with data and with
people are both protective against cognitive decline or impairment,
Alzheimer’s disease, and all-cause dementia (Andel et al., 2005,
2007; Bosma et al., 2003; Karp et al., 2009; Kröger et al., 2008;
Smyth et al., 2004). By contrast, in the majority of studies, the
complexity of work with things is unrelated to these neurocogni-
tive outcomes (Andel et al., 2005, 2007; Karp et al., 2009; Potter
et al., 2006; Smyth et al., 2004; but see Kröger et al., 2008; Potter
et al., 2008). Although less studied in these papers, work requiring
high physical demand has been found to increase risk of cognitive
impairment in old age and Alzheimer’s disease (Potter et al., 2006,
2008; Smyth et al., 2004). This latter finding is consistent with
earlier reports that categorized or ranked occupations along a
single continuum (e.g., Dartigues et al., 1992; Fratiglioni, Ahlbom,
Viitanen, & Winblad, 1993), and it has been suggested that work
that is more physically demanding exposes individuals to risks
(e.g., neurotoxins in farming and other occupations, cf. Dartigues
et al., 1992) for cognitive decline and dementia.
To our knowledge, this occupational complexity perspective has
never been applied in research on the benefits of volunteering in
particular, although it has been shown that the cognitive complex-
ity of seniors’ general leisure activities shares a reciprocal rela-
tionship with intellectual flexibility (Schooler & Maluta, 2001).
More relevant to our current point is the fact that occupational
therapists view volunteering as an occupation; albeit part-time and
unpaid, volunteering is a way of spending time in meaningful
activity (Black & Living, 2004). Furthermore, formal volunteer
roles often have a formal occupational counterpart. For example, a
volunteer cashier in a hospital gift shop is performing the occu-
pational work activities of a cashier. A hospital “friendly visitor”
is performing many of the duties of a companion. Therefore, the
occupational complexity of volunteer roles can be ascertained
from the same databases used to analyze paid occupations. Indeed,
the International Labour Organization guidelines encourage all
United Nations (UN) member states to use the Manual on the
Measurement of Volunteer Work (International Labour Organiza-
tion, 2011) to match their volunteers’ roles to occupations in order
to “build up a knowledge base” (p. i) about volunteer work and to
“establish the economic value of volunteering” (p. i). Although the
goal of the UN is more economically focused, a fortuitous by-
product of these efforts to match volunteer roles to occupations is
that the occupational complexity data can be easily derived and
used in research to relate the cognitive, social, and physical com-
plexity of volunteer work to health outcomes.
In some ways, however, it is not so surprising that in-depth job
analysis of volunteer roles has not been undertaken in research
efforts to understand the protective benefits of volunteering. Com-
pared to the relative ease with which one can analyze dichotomous
variables (e.g., volunteering yes/no; volunteering for religious or
nonreligious causes), or ordinal or continuous variables (num-
ber of volunteer hours or roles), we acknowledge that taking the
steps necessary to determine the occupational complexity of vol-
unteer roles in a reliable and valid manner is much more labor
intensive.
It is also likely that the relationship between volunteer occupa-
tional complexity and health outcomes is not linear, but that there
is an optimal level of physical, cognitive, and social complexity,
beyond which health benefits may dissipate. Moreover, these
points of inflection probably differ between individuals, depending
on their capabilities in these domains. The key to optimal health
benefits, then, may be to find or construct volunteer positions that
provide what occupational therapists call the “just right challenge”
(see Rebeiro & Polgar, 1999).
Supposition 2: Increases in Social, Physical, and
Cognitive Activity Improve Functioning Through a
Host of Biological and Psychological Mechanisms
Support for an aspect of our second supposition—that increases
in social, physical, and cognitive activity improve psychosocial,
physical, and cognitive functioning—can be inferred both from
the volunteering literature reviewed herein as well as from the
broader literature examining activity in other contexts that was
discussed early in this review. We do not recapitulate this infor-
mation here, except to say that both literatures provide evidence
that increased activity, including that associated (indirectly thus
far) with volunteering, has salubrious effects on social, physical,
and cognitive functioning (see Tables 5–7). Efforts have also been
made identify the biological (e.g., brain-derived neurotrophic fac-
tor) and psychological mechanisms (e.g., self-efficacy) of these
associations between increased activity and improved functioning,
although the bulk of this work has occurred outside the volunteer-
ing literature. Moreover, there is evidence from the broader ge-
rontological literature that better functioning in one domain is
associated with better functioning in another domain. An example
of such findings is that reduced symptoms of depression (e.g.,
Blake, Mo, Malik, & Thomas, 2009) and improved cognition and
brain health (for review, see Erickson, Gildengers, & Butters,
2013) occur with improvements in physical fitness among seniors.
Functional limitations among seniors are also associated with
restricted life-space mobility, referring to the size of the spatial
2
Unfortunately, the DOT has now been replaced by the Occupational
Information Network (http://www.onetonline.org/). The rather straightfor-
ward data–people–things categories are now spread across 41 different
“work activities,” and are thus less easy to apply to research.
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20 ANDERSON ET AL.

area a person explores in daily life (Portegijs, Rantakokko, Mik-
kola, Viljanen, & Rantanen, 2014), suggesting that functional
improvements may be associated with greater and more varied
activity. Corresponding to this idea is the fact that seniors who
volunteer report becoming more active in their everyday lives
(Misener et al., 2010; Morrow-Howell et al., 1999, 2009, 2012).
Hence, the arrows in our model are bidirectional between in-
creased activity as a function of volunteering and improved func-
tioning, mediated by biological and psychological mechanisms,
but whether these links are confirmed by research on volunteering
remains to be determined.
Supposition 3: Improvements in Social, Physical, and
Cognitive Functioning Reduce Functional
Impairments and Dementia Risk
The existing literature reveals that volunteering is associated
with both improvements in social, physical, and cognitive func-
tioning and reduced functional impairment, as reviewed previously
(ACL: Li & Ferraro, 2006; Morrow-Howell et al., 2003; Tang,
2009; AHEAD: Lum & Lightfoot, 2005; LSOA: Sabin, 1993;
Aging in Manitoba: Menec, 2003; and the Experience Corps study,
Hong & Morrow-Howell, 2010). However, no attempt has been
made yet to ascertain whether the psychosocial, physical, or cog-
nitive changes associated with volunteering cause the functional
changes seen. Moreover, the diagnosis of many forms of dementia
(e.g., due to Alzheimer’s disease, vascular causes, Lewy body
disease) requires that criteria for both cognitive dysfunction and
functional impairments be met; thus, this evidence provides opti-
mism for the hypothesis that volunteering will also be associated
with reduced dementia risk. However, this aspect of our third and
final supposition has never been tested.
Recommendations for Future Research
An important body of evidence has emerged on the psychoso-
cial, physical, and cognitive benefits associated with volunteering
among older adults. Nevertheless, as this review details, there are
many questions left unanswered. In this final section of the review,
we provide some recommended approaches for future research to
help answer these important questions.
Recommendation 1: Design More Studies With
Objective Outcome Measures
An exciting new trend in research on the benefits of volunteer-
ing among older adults is the inclusion of objective measures of
health and cognition. Mortality risk has long been a focus of
research, and it is encouraging that that the association of volun-
teering with delayed mortality is no longer questioned (Okun et al.,
2013). Thus far, there is emerging evidence that volunteering is
associated with less hypertension (Burr et al., 2011; Tavares et al.,
2013) and with fewer fall-related hip fractures (Warburton & Peel,
2008). Nevertheless, it would still be useful to determine whether
volunteering is associated with a reduced risk of specific condi-
tions that in turn predispose one to premature death or dementia,
such as stroke and diabetes.
If volunteering is to reduce dementia risk, then it must first have
positive effects on cognition. The initial evidence is encouraging,
with Carlson, Saczynski, et al. (2008) and Carlson et al. (2009)
reporting improved memory and executive functioning associated
with seniors’ volunteering. It will be essential to replicate these
findings in other study populations, and it would be useful to see
how volunteering affects other cognitive domains such as atten-
tion, working memory, prospective memory, and autobiographical
memory. Finally, the increase in prefrontal lobe activity during an
executive task seen in Experience Corps volunteers (Carlson et al.,
2009) is an exciting first step in exploring the effects of volun-
teering on the brain. We hope that this field follows in the footsteps
of the exercise literature and further explores the benefits of
volunteering on brain function, structure (e.g., protecting against
atrophy and white matter pathology), and metabolism.
Objective measurement of psychosocial functioning is trickier
to achieve, but not impossible. There are now a handful of exper-
imental paradigms that measure the implicit effects of psychoso-
cial well-being, ranging from tasks such as the emotional Stroop
task (Williams, Mathews, & MacLeod, 1996) that can be sensitive
to symptoms of depression or anxiety, to lexical decision or
category judgment tasks that are sensitive to self-esteem or ste-
reotypes, including age stereotypes (see Chasteen, Schwarz, &
Park, 2002; Greenwald & Farnham, 2000; Hummert, Garstka,
O’Brien, Greenwald, & Mellott, 2002). Such implicit measures of
psychosocial well-being can complement subjective (question-
naire) or qualitative data, as there is evidence that these functions
operate at least in part outside our conscious awareness (see
Greenwald & Banaji, 1995).
Recommendation 2: Integrate Mixed Methods
Evidence in Prospective Studies on the
Benefits of Volunteering
One result of this review that surprised us was that the vast
majority of studies employ a single type of measure, be it quali-
tative, subjective, or objective. A handful of studies included both
subjective and objective measures (e.g., Lum & Lightfoot, 2005, in
their examination of the effects of volunteering on self-reported
depression, health, diagnosed medical conditions, and functional
limitations, and on objective measures of nursing home admissions
and mortality). However, no study has attempted to assess the
degree to which volunteers’ personal experiences of volunteering,
as assessed by qualitative interviews, change over time, and how
these changes correlate with objective changes. A very powerful
message about the salubrious benefits associated with volunteering
would be communicated if self-reported health benefits were con-
firmed with objective measures of health.
Recommendation 3: Gain a Better Understanding of
the Individual Differences in the Benefits
Associated With Volunteering
A number of papers have explored individual differences in
the benefits associated with volunteering. Starting with the
question of whether the benefits enjoyed by seniors who vol-
unteer would be expected from volunteers of any age, it appears
that volunteering is especially beneficial for seniors. Although
Okun et al. (2011), in their cross-sectional comparison of vol-
unteers aged 18⫹, found no interaction between volunteer
status and age on positive affect, negative affect, or resilience,
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21
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

the bulk of the evidence suggests otherwise. Four papers have
reported preferential benefits associated with volunteering
among older but not middle-aged or younger adults, in terms of
depression (Kim & Pai, 2010; Li & Ferraro, 2005; Musick &
Wilson, 2003), life satisfaction and perceived health (especially
at high rates of volunteering; Van Willigen, 2000), and func-
tional limitations (Li & Ferraro, 2005). All of these reports
come from the ACL study cohort, although they do coincide
with the report by Omoto, Snyder, and Martino (2000) of
greater overall perceived benefits from volunteering among
older than younger adults. Nevertheless, these effects should be
replicated in different samples before we can safely conclude
that seniors are especially likely to benefit from volunteering.
Evidence regarding other individual differences among older
adults in the benefits associated with volunteering is mixed. A
couple of studies suggest that it is the less vulnerable seniors who
benefit most. This includes Sabin (1993), who showed that vol-
unteering was associated with a reduced mortality risk in healthy
seniors but not in those with fair health or functional limitations,
and the cross-sectional study of Windsor et al. (2008), who re-
ported that high levels of volunteering (ⱖ800 annual hr) was
associated with greater negative affect among those who were not
married or in a common-law relationship (and had a moderate
level of education, i.e., 13–15 years), compared to those who were
in a partnered relationship. However, the bulk of the evidence
suggests that it is actually the more vulnerable seniors who dem-
onstrate volunteering-related benefits the most. Dulin et al. (2012)
reported a stronger cross-sectional association between volunteer-
ing and happiness among seniors with lower socioeconomic status.
Okun et al. (2011) reported that the cross-sectional association
between volunteering and both positive affect and resilience was
greater among seniors with more chronic health conditions. These
cross-sectional findings have been echoed in two prospective
cohort studies. Analyzing data from the HRS cohort, McDonnall
(2011) reported that volunteering was associated with reduced
symptoms of depression among seniors with dual sensory loss, and
Lee, Steinman, and Tan (2001) demonstrated that the association
between volunteering and reduced mortality risk was greater
among nondrivers than drivers, especially those from rural areas.
Finally, Musick et al. (1999) analyzed data from the ACL cohort,
and reported that the association between volunteering for one
organization and reduced mortality risk was greater among seniors
with low levels of social interaction. Together, this evidence
provides impetus for exploring further how seniors’ vulnerability
modulates the relationship between volunteering and health out-
comes, and whether this varies as a function of vulnerability type
(e.g., social vs. health-related).
One important issue is that any variable that moderates
volunteering benefits has the potential to also moderate the
propensity to volunteer in the first place. Indeed, there is no
doubt that social selection and social causation both influence
the effects of volunteering on seniors’ health outcomes. As
already reviewed, there is evidence that seniors with higher
levels of well-being (e.g., younger, more educated) are more
likely to volunteer (social selection effects) and that volunteer-
ing is associated with elevated levels of well-being (social
causation effects). Although most studies examined only social
selection effects (not reviewed in depth here) or only social
causation effects, papers from two prospective cohort studies
have measured and verified both effects (ACL: Li, 2007; Li &
Ferraro, 2005, 2006; Thoits & Hewitt, 2001; HRS: Hao, 2008).
For example, Thoits and Hewitt (2001) reported that the links
between older adults’ tendency to volunteer at baseline and
their happiness, better health, lower depression, greater satis-
faction with life, and/or higher self-esteem were fully accounted
for by their degree of social integration (measured by frequency
of church and organization attendance); however, volunteering
over time was still associated with increased well-being in these
areas, even when the level of social integration was controlled.
Similarly, Hao (2008) found that older volunteers reported
fewer symptoms of depression at baseline, and volunteering
protected against depression symptoms over time. Other studies
identified compensatory social selection effects that combine
with social causation effects. Those who had lost a spouse
within the prior 4 years were more likely to start volunteering
than their married counterparts and experience greater reduc-
tions in the number of depressive symptoms (Li, 2007). Fur-
thermore, contrary to the findings of Thoits and Hewitt (2001),
Li and Ferraro (2005, 2006) reported that seniors with more
symptoms of depression were more likely to begin volunteering
and that their volunteering was associated with lower numbers
of depressive symptoms. These results point to volunteering as
a possible prescription to allay depressive symptoms.
Overall, the existing evidence suggests that seniors do enjoy
greater benefits associated with their volunteering than do their
younger counterparts, that more vulnerable seniors may benefit
the most, and that social selection and social causation effects
are both at play, at least in terms of the association between
volunteering and depression. Much more work is needed to
determine (a) whether the benefits associated with volunteering
differ between senior and younger volunteers, (b) what individ-
ual difference factors moderate changes associated with volun-
teering, and (c) how social selection and social causation effects
interplay across a wide range of outcome measures.
Recommendation 4: Relate Benefits of Volunteering to
Specific Volunteering Activities
Perhaps the biggest revolution in research on the benefits of
volunteering would occur if the calls to relate specific volun-
teering activities to health outcomes were heeded. Above, we
discussed the approach taken in research linking occupational
complexity to cognitive health and dementia risk. Assessing the
occupational complexity of volunteer roles would allow re-
searchers to examine how different levels of complexity within
different types of complexity (psychosocial, physical, and cog-
nitive) relate to health outcomes. The study design then be-
comes essentially a dose–response design, with outcomes ex-
amined as a function of the social, physical, and cognitive
complexity of the volunteer roles. Of course, when volunteers
choose their own roles, an attempt would have to be made to
accommodate in the analysis a selection bias whereby more
capable seniors might select more complex roles. How volun-
teer occupational complexity relates to health outcomes likely
also depends on how much time one puts into the role, the fit
between the complexity of the volunteer role and the volun-
teers’ capabilities, as well as on important personal character-
istics such as one’s motivation to perform that role, the satis-
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22 ANDERSON ET AL.

faction gained from it, and the supports present in that
individual’s personal environment. These are important ques-
tions for researchers aiming to understand what it is specifically
about volunteering that contributes to positive psychosocial,
physical, and cognitive outcomes.
Intriguingly, analysis of how the benefits associated with vol-
unteering covary with the occupational complexity of seniors’
volunteer roles could occur in any design type. Descriptive qual-
itative studies could ascertain whether themes about active living
or new learning, for example, derive more from seniors in complex
than simple roles. Cross-sectional studies could examine whether
volunteer occupational complexity modulates the magnitude of the
differences between volunteering and nonvolunteering seniors.
Prospective cohort studies and randomized control trials could
assess whether salubrious health changes over time are greater
among volunteers in more complex roles. To avoid the issue of
potentially high attrition among control groups in randomized
control trials, participants could be randomized to high or low
complexity volunteer roles (and not to a waitlist control group) and
allowed to select from role options within that level of complexity.
Together, these study design options allow researchers to capital-
ize both on the advantages of the particular study designs, and on
the potential utility of examining how the health benefits associ-
ated with volunteering among older adults can be amplified by
complex social, physical, and/or cognitive volunteer activity.
Recommendation 5: Investigate the Independent and
Interactive Effects of Volunteering and Other
Engaging Activities
At the start of this review, we discussed our belief that volun-
teering is similar to other activities that provide social, physical,
and cognitive activity to seniors’ lives (such as belonging to
community or exercise groups), but that volunteering has the
added feature of involving altruism that these other activities do
not necessarily share. This then raises the question—is volunteer-
ing special? More specifically, three questions can be asked:
1. Is volunteering associated with unique health benefits
when engagement in other activities is controlled?
2. Is volunteering associated with greater health benefits
than these other activities?
3. Are the health benefits associated with volunteering am-
plified when one also engages in other activities?
In response to the first question, some studies have employed
multivariable analyses to address the unique contribution of vol-
unteering, controlling for engagement in other activities. These
studies have found that volunteering, compared to not volunteer-
ing, is associated in seniors with
• less decline over time in quality of life when controlling for
work status and informal care giving (Wahrendorf & Siegrist,
2010) and predicting quality of life when controlling for work
status (Bond, 1982);
• reduced mortality risk when controlling for engagement in
community activities such as attending concerts or religious
services (Rogers, 1996);
• reduced symptoms of depression over time when controlling
for informal care giving (Kahana et al., 2013) or work status
(Hao, 2008);
• less increase in functional limitations associated with frailty
over time when controlling for attending religious services or
work status (Jung et al., 2010); and
• better subjective health and cognitive functioning (but not
depression) and reduced mortality risk, when controlling for
engagement in physical activities, everyday activities, and
hobbies (Shmotkin et al., 2003).
These results suggest that volunteering does have unique asso-
ciations with positive health outcomes, over and above those
associated with other activities, but admittedly the scope of other
activities examined has been rather limited. More research focused
on identifying the unique benefits associated with volunteering on
a broader range of everyday life activities is needed.
In response to the second question, a handful of studies have
directly compared the association between formal volunteering
and other activities with health outcomes. In a prospective
cohort study, Li and Ferraro (2005) found that volunteering, but
not informal care giving, was associated with reduced severity
of symptoms of depression over time. However, in the cross-
sectional study reported by Krause et al. (1992), seniors who
provided informal support, but not formal volunteering, showed
a greater sense of personal control, while only those in formal
volunteer roles had fewer somatic symptoms of depression.
Choi and Kim (2011) reported that later psychological well-
being was more strongly predicted by earlier charitable giving
than it was by earlier volunteering, controlling for income and
other demographic variables. These few reports suggest that
different forms of altruistic acts (donating money, informal care
giving, and formal volunteering) may have differential associ-
ations with health outcomes, but more research is clearly
needed. In addition, three studies have directly compared for-
mal volunteering and other activities on health outcomes. In a
descriptive study by Morrow-Howell et al. (1999), volunteers
endorsed more benefits than did seniors attending classes. In the
cross-sectional study by Carp (1968), older workers endorsed
greater happiness, self-efficacy, and social support than did
older adult nonworking volunteers, even though these two
groups did not differ in age, income, gender, education, job
level during career, or health complaints. Finally, in another
cross-sectional study by Aquino et al. (1996), working was
directly associated with life satisfaction among seniors, but the
relationship between volunteering and life satisfaction was me-
diated by social support. Again, more research is needed to
compare how the health benefits associated with volunteering
differ from those of other activities. Prospective data on this
issue are notably lacking; it would be valuable to compare the
health benefits associated with volunteering head-to-head with
those of other formal activities such as exercise programs and
late-life learning programs.
There are no data that speak to the third question of whether the
health benefits associated with volunteering are greater when one
also engages in other activities. Testing for interactive effects of
this nature requires massive sample sizes, and it would be difficult
to usefully categorize across individuals the type and amount of
engagement in other activities. Nevertheless, the recent report by
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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
23
BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH VOLUNTEERING

Carlson et al. (2012) suggests that variety may be the spice of life:
Women who engaged in more forms of activity, regardless of the
cognitive complexity of those activities, had less risk of cognitive
decline over a 9.5-year interval. This result, along with common
sense, suggests that it is better to volunteer and exercise and attend
classes than it is to only volunteer one’s time.
Recommendation 6: Examine the Association Between
Volunteering and Dementia Risk
Society is in dire need of preventative measures to delay or
prevent dementia onset. Dementia prevalence is projected to dou-
ble over 20 years, from over 30 million people worldwide today to
more than 65 million people in 2030 (Alzheimer’s Disease Inter-
national and World Health Organization, 2012). Delaying demen-
tia onset by just a few years would tremendously cut prevalence
rates and would have enormous benefits to the economy (Brook-
meyer, Johnson, Ziegler-Graham, & Arrighi, 2007), not to mention
to the psychological well-being of patients and their loved ones.
The studies reviewed herein provide a sufficient base of evi-
dence to justify research into the effects of volunteering on de-
mentia risk, particularly when one considers the fact that dementia-
related neuropathology is often present years prior to diagnosis
(see Mortimer, Borenstein, Gosche, & Snowden, 2005, for a re-
view). There are a number of ongoing prospective studies in which
physician-diagnosed dementia is one of the primary outcome mea-
sures (e.g., Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, Betula Project
in Sweden, Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative). At the
very least, we encourage investigators in these studies to include
questions about volunteering in their surveys so that the basic link
between volunteering and dementia risk can be made.
Conclusions
Gerontological research is discovering protective lifestyle fac-
tors that help maintain the level of functioning of older adults and
offset functional decline and dementia risk. The focus of this
review was on the protective benefits associated with volunteering
among older adults. Volunteers of all ages contribute at least $400
billion to the global economy (International Labour Organization,
2011), with older adults contributing significantly more hours of
volunteer service per person than their younger counterparts. The
results of this review show that volunteering in later life is asso-
ciated with significant psychosocial, physical, cognitive, and func-
tional benefits for healthy older adults. There is some evidence to
suggest that more hours of volunteering (up to a point), feeling that
one’s efforts matter, and volunteering for prosocial reasons are
associated with greater benefits. The mechanisms by which vol-
unteering may confer biopsychosocial health benefits may or may
not differ from those of other engaging activities, but unlike the
relatively voluminous literature exploring the psychological, oc-
cupational, cognitive, biological, and neural mechanisms by which
other activities improve functioning, very little research has fo-
cused on how volunteering contributes to enhanced biopsychoso-
cial health. We advocate that future research involve more objec-
tive measures of functioning, integration of qualitative and
quantitative methods in prospective study designs, further explo-
rations of individual differences in the health benefits associated
with volunteering, analyses to determine how volunteer job com-
plexity relates to health benefits, and investigation of how
volunteering-related health benefits are independent of, or inter-
active with, engagement in other protective activities.
A final, more startling, omission in this field of inquiry is
research investigating the capacity of volunteering to reduce the
risk and delay the onset of dementia. It is already clear that
volunteering is a win–win for seniors; it would be an even bigger
triumph if volunteering also reduced dementia risk. Given the
emerging evidence that seniors engaged in formal volunteering
develop fewer functional limitations and improved memory and
executive functioning, it is a reasonable and important hypothesis
that giving of one’s time and skills in productive activity will also
help reduce risk of dementia. The time to test this hypothesis is
now.
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Received April 26, 2013
Revision received June 20, 2014
Accepted June 30, 2014 䡲
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