Inequality in Older Volunteering: Association Between Volunteer Competency and Demographic Profiles

ABSTRACT

The present survey research investigated older people’s volunteering competency relating to social inequality by exploring the latent ability profile and demographic correlates of 1,000 older volunteers in 73 community care centersin southern Taiwan. Older volunteers were classified into advanced (n = 509), basic (n = 214), and novice (n = 277) groups. Demographics examined included: individualistic characteristics (religious beliefs), resources (education; number of chronic diseases), andsocial factors (serving area and spoken language, volunteering duration, marital status, and gender). Apparent inequality issues were revealed. The advanced group was better educated, Mandarin-speaking, and in urban areas. while the novice group featured the opposite (lower education Taiwanese-speaking suburban areas).

KEYWORDS:

• Latent profile analysis
• older volunteering
• volunteer competency
• volunteering inequality

Acknowledgments

Sincere appreciation is directed by our group to the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) in Taiwan for funding this study (NHRI-EX113-11209PI), to the administrators and staff of 73 community care centers for their support and assistance, and to the 1,000 older volunteers for their generous participation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Contributors

All authors meet the criteria for authorship, have approved the final article, and all those entitled to authorship are listed as authors. Szu-Yu Chen: Conceptualization, formal analysis, and original draft preparation. Kuei-Min Chen: Conceptualization, methodology, critical review and editing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition. Meng-Chin Chen: Methodology, investigation, and critical review and editing. Tzu-Yu Lin: Investigation and critical review and editing. Li-Ching Yang: Investigation and critical review and editing. Frank Belcastro: Critical review and editing.

Institutional review board approval

The Institutional Review Board of Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital approved this study [KMUHIRB-E(I)-20220056].

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) in Taiwan [NHRI-EX113-11209PI]. The funding source supported this study financially and was not involved in the study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, report writing, and decision to submit the paper for publication.