Beyond keeping active: concomitants of being a volunteer in old-old age

This study examines concomitants of volunteering in the context of other lifestyle activities. Investigating formal volunteering in old-old age, the authors analyzed data of 148 volunteers versus 1,195 nonvolunteers in a national sample of the Israeli Jewish population aged 75-94. As hypothesized, being a volunteer related (whether as a cause or effect) to more positive functioning on psychosocial markers and prospectively resulted in reduced mortality risk even when other activity outlets (physical activity, everyday activities, having a hobby) were controlled. These findings suggest that the benefits of volunteering in late life are not reducible to those of other activities.