[Participation in social and domestic activities by the elderly: a socioeconomic explanatory model]

This study focuses on the involvement of elderly people (people of 55 years and older) in the Netherlands in voluntary work, voluntary aid, household labour and do-it-yourself activities. Advanced age and a bad health condition are expected to be important predictors for the reduction of participation. The data are collected by the Netherlands Bureau of Statistics in 1980, 1982, 1983 and 1986. The characteristics determining the participation of the elderly have been studied by using LISREL. Women were more involved in housekeeping, men in do-it-yourself activities. Elderly with a higher education level more often participated in voluntary work. Having more resources such as consumer durables accounted for the increase of do-it-yourself activities. The results give support to the informal economical theory. However, we didn't expect elderly with paid jobs to participate less in voluntary aid, household labour and do-it-yourself activities. In addition it turned out that the participation regarding voluntary work declined between 1980 and 1986, whereas for the whole population the amount of people doing voluntary work remained stable.