Still participating after all these years: a study of life task participation in later life

The authors examined in 618 older Americans the extent to which individual levels of life satisfaction were connected to participation in the shared tasks of late adulthood (e.g., community service and social life participation). Participation in these shared tasks was an important predictor of life satisfaction, controlling for health, self-reported vitality, social support, individual differences in congeniality, organizational affiliation, and prior levels of satisfaction. Social life participation was particularly important for retirees in predicting life satisfaction, more so than for study participants who were still able to derive enjoyment from work activity. This difference between retired and nonretired subjects was especially pronounced for men and illustrates how the important domains of activity shift with sociocultural expectations and opportunities of a given life phase.