Diversity, Inclusion, and the Voice of Older People: Engagement and Decision-Making in Seniors’ Organizations

ABSTRACT

Seniors’ organizations play a vital role representing older people in policymaking. The impact of diversity among older people on organizations’ engagement and decision-making processes therefore has implications for democratic inclusion. Interviews were conducted with paid and voluntary managers of Australian seniors’ organizations, along with analysis of organizational documents. Findings identified issues of presence and participation and challenges inherent in inclusive deliberation, highlighting the importance of leadership. Leaders’ understandings about what drives and impedes participation, who and what is represented, and how inclusion should be practiced are vital. It is important to consider how organizations can be supported to facilitate inclusion as their constituencies grow.

KEYWORDS:

• Decision-making
• democratic inclusion
• diversity
• older people
• representation

Acknowledgments

The contributions to this project of the participating organizations, their staff, and management committees are gratefully acknowledged.

Declaration of interest

The author has no conflict of interest to declare.

Funding

This research was conducted at the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies and was funded by the Faculty of Business, Queensland University of Technology.

Notes

¹ As these organizations are active and well known in Australia, in the interests of protecting the confidentiality and anonymity of respondents, only limited detail is reported here about the organizations and individual respondents as well as specific details about and direct quotations from organizational documents, many of which are publicly available.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted at the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies and was supported by the Faculty of Business, Queensland University of Technology.