Association of volunteering with mental well-being: a lifecourse analysis of a population-based longitudinal study Seminar
- Time:
- 14:00 - 15:00
- Date:
- 30 November 2017
- Venue:
- Building 54, Seminar Room 8033 (8B) University of Southampton Highfield Campus Southampton SO17 1BJ
For more information regarding this seminar, please email Professor Dankmar Bohning at D.A.Bohning@soton.ac.uk .
Event details
Joint work with John Mohan (Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC), University of Birmingham) and Peter Smith (Social Statistics & Demography, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton)
The Association of volunteering with well-being has been found in previous research, but mostly among older people. The aim of this study was to examine the association of volunteering with mental well-being among the British population across the lifecourse, using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), a population based longitudinal study. We used 63433 observations (person-years) in this study.
The main outcome was mental well-being which was measured by using General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12 or GHQ); high values denote high mental disorder. Four groups of volunteering participation were created: frequent (once a week), infrequent (once a month/several times a year), rare (once or less a year) and never. Multilevel linear models were used to analyse variations in mental well-being over lifecourse by levels of volunteering.
When not considering age, those who engaged in volunteering regularly appeared to experience higher levels of mental well-being than those who never volunteered. To explore the association of volunteering with GHQ across the lifecourse, interaction terms were fitted between age and volunteering. The interactions were significant, demonstrating that these associations vary by age. The association between volunteering and well-being did not emerge during early adulthood to mid-adulthood, instead becoming apparent above the age of 40 years and continuing up to old age. Moreover, in early adulthood the absence of engagement in voluntary activity was not related to mental well-being but GHQ scores for this group increased sharply with age, levelling off after the age of 40, and then increasing again above the age of 70 years. The study also indicates variation in GHQ scores (65%) within individuals across time, suggesting evidence for lifecourse effects. We conclude that volunteering may be more meaningful for mental well-being at some points of time in the lifecourse.
The seminar will also be available via a live web-cast at
https://coursecast.soton.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=9d312f7d-72d2-4c2a-a3a9-465eacf57c59
Speaker information
Dr Faiza Tabassum ,PhD in Social Statistics