How to hire voluntary helpers? We shed new light on this question by reporting a field experiment in which we invited 2859 students to help at the ‘ESA Europe 2012’ conference. Invitation emails varied non-monetary and monetary incentives to convince subjects to offer help. Students could apply to help at the conference and, if so, also specify the working time they wanted to provide. Just asking subjects to volunteer or offering them a certificate turned out to be significantly more motivating than mentioning that the regular conference fee would be waived for helpers. By means of an online-survey experiment, we find that intrinsic motivation to help is likely to have been crowded out by mentioning the waived fee. Increasing monetary incentives by varying hourly wages of 1, 5, and 10 Euros shows positive effects on the number of applications and on the working time offered. However, when comparing these results with treatments without any monetary compensation, the number of applications could not be increased by offering money and may even be reduced.

Although volunteering is considered a good strategy for successful ageing, not many older adults are engaged in voluntary work and those who are do so mainly sporadically. This study focuses on time invested in volunteering rather than on doing voluntary work or not, as is often done in studies so far. By combining the theory of resources for volunteering with a functional and structural approach to volunteering, this cross-sectional study seeks to shed light on a wide range of factors associated with the intensity of volunteering. The study is based on a sample of 1,599 volunteers aged 50 and older participating in the Norwegian study on Life Course, Ageing and Generation Study (NorLAG). The survey includes, among others, detailed information about demographics and time invested in voluntary work and questions about attitudes, motivations, structural and other potential barriers to volunteering. Multivariate linear regression analyses indicate that a religious attitude is associated with elevated hours spent on voluntary work, while co-habitation is associated with a decreased engagement in voluntary work. In addition, people who are motivated to volunteer because they find it interesting and because volunteering allows them to use their competence spend more time volunteering. Human capital, i.e. education, income and subjective health, are not associated with the number of hours invested in voluntary work. The likelihood of contributing more volunteering hours of older men is 17.5 per cent higher than that of older women. We found no indication of a relation between work status, functional limitations, urbanisation or ethnicity and voluntary work engagement. Policies aiming to increase time investment of volunteers should strive for an optimal fit between the nature of the voluntary work and the interests and skills of the volunteers. In designing interventions to stimulate higher engagement in voluntary work, one should further promote strategies for flexible time commitment.

Drawing upon findings from a psycho-social study employing biographical-narrative interviews, this article examines some challenges men unable to work due to mental illness face – such as intensified stigma – and how, despite this, they resiliently continue to seek belonging and purpose. This article offers some valuable insights into the instrumentalisation of volunteering for claimants of UK social security and how and why voluntary work is valued by those who autonomously perform it. It will explore how social connections provide a tool of resistance to help marginalised individuals legitimise their identity. It is argued participants’ engagement in socially valuable activities have become increasingly insecure due to continued conditional welfare reform and the detrimental impacts of austerity.

In welfare societies, disability pensions or incapacity benefits provide income security to people who, due to health problems or disability, are assessed as being unemployable. However, it is sometimes possible for people on disability pensions to work, for instance on a voluntary basis in and on behalf of associations of disabled people. This article applies perspectives on employability and discusses whether voluntary workers, like representatives of associations of disabled people, could have been employed in the ordinary labour market or whether there are definite characteristics of voluntary work which allow their capacity for work to be utilised.

Background: Advanced dementia may be accompanied by behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). BPSD stemming from pain, depression, or psychosis benefit from treatment with drugs, but in other cases, medications have limited efficacy and may elicit adverse effects. Therefore, more attention has been paid to non-pharmacological interventions, which have fewer risks and can be successful in reducing agitation and negative mood. However, these interventions are frequently not implemented in nursing homes due to staffing constraints. This study explores the potential of volunteers to further assist staff.

Methods: We interviewed 18 staff members and 39 volunteers in 17 aged care facilities in southeast Melbourne, Australia.

Results: Three-quarters of the facilities in this region worked with at least one regular volunteer. Both self-interest and altruistic reasons were identified as motives for volunteering. Volunteers were perceived by facility representatives as helpful to residents through provision of stimulation and company. However, they were discouraged from engaging with individuals with prominent BPSD. A majority of facility representatives and volunteers had experienced some difficulties in negotiating working relationships but most were easily resolved. A large majority of volunteers expressed an interest in learning new methods of interacting with residents.

Conclusion: Despite their beneficial effects for agitated residents, non-pharmacological interventions are often not implemented in aged care facilities. Staff members often lack time but current volunteers in the sector are available, experienced, and interested in learning new methods of interacting. Volunteers therefore potentially are a valuable resource to assist with the application of new treatments.

With the central players in the United Kingdom policy debate on pensions schemes and funding advocating an extension to the average working life (or, more precisely, a rise in the age of ceasing work), this paper reports the findings of qualitative interviews with men and women at or approaching state pension age that examined what motivated some people to continue to work after that age. By exploring their work histories and orientations to work, the paper shows that people from different social and occupational backgrounds not only conceive work and retirement in different ways but also have contrasting opportunities to continue in occupations after retirement age. Their attitudes and the opportunities they encounter shape the decisions they make at state pension age. Distinctions are drawn between those who articulated an identity as a ‘worker’ and those who defined themselves as ‘professionals and creatives’, and within those categories, between the employed and self-employed. The paper elucidates the tensions between individuals' normative expectations of retirement, their desire for autonomy and flexibility in later life, and the financial and occupational reality of life after state pension age. We argue that understanding the different cultural meanings of work and retirement for different types of worker has implications for the design and implementation of policies to extend working life.