Intergenerational relations and prosocial engagement in older people

Familial and social generativity, well-being, and active engagement: these are the topics that we have investigated in the present work, with the goal of gaining a better understanding of active aging. Our findings allow us to confirm the literature that supports the idea that while it is true that participation in volunteer activity correlates with medium-high levels of well-being in older people (see, for example, Erikson - Erikson - Kivnick, 1986; Bosse - Aldwin - Levenson - Workman-Daniels - Ekerdt, 1990; Duncan - Whitney, 1990; Luoh - Herzog, 2002), it is also true that older people who are engaged in their family networks enjoy elevated well-being (see, in this connection, Minkler - Roe - Robertson-Beckley, 1994). In fact, the older people in the two groups of participants – volunteers and non-volunteers – show substantially the same good levels of well-being. These results go against the tendency in literature that supports the presence of higher levels of well-being in volunteers compared to their non-engaged peers.