Civic Service across the Life Course

What's age got to do with it? Volunteerism and service dominate our discussion of civic engagement because the great resource of the aging population will most likely be put to use through these activities. Yet the growth of service opportunities for older adults lags behind the well-established youth service movement. My colleagues and I at the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis are studying institutional capacity for national and international service, where most of the focus has historically been on young people. But what exactly has age got to do with it? This article compares service programs for youth and older adults. Age does matter: Service programs must attend to life-course issues. What is needed is development of service opportunities that can engage people across all phases of life. Service and Age Service can be defined as "an organized period of substantial engagement and contribution to the local, national, and world community, recognized and valued by society, with minimal monetary compensation to the participant" (Sherraden, 2001, p. 2). Service can be viewed as a subset of volunteer activities with certain features that lead us to identify diem as service: (1) formal organization and structure; (2) formal identification as a service program (e.g., AmeriCorps, Foster Grandparents, Experience Corps); (3) defined role for service, comparable to a job description; (4) required level or duration of commitment; (5) articulated goal of improving a specific area of human or environmental affairs; and (6) acknowledgment and recognition as a valuable contribution (Morrow-Howell, Carden, and Sherraden, 2005). When people think of service as defined this way, they usually think of young people. We think of service-learning projects as part of their formal education. There are "alternative spring break" programs that take the students to national and international locations to provide service. In fact, some colleges and universities now require a certain amount of volunteer service. Some programs, like Teach for America or City Year, are designed for college graduates to use as a transition to jobs and to active citizenship. The government and other institutions provide opportunities for international service, like the Peace Corps. It is clear that the service institutions that have developed over the last fifty years largely have focused on youth. In a survey of 210 service programs worldwide, 77 percent focused exclusively on youth (McBride, Benitez, and Sherraden, 2003). In a review of the effects of service programs on citizenship, Perry and Katula (2001) identified thirty-seven studies, and all but eight programs were exclusively for young people. Perry and Katula (2001, p. 330) concluded that "many institutions and organizations have taken up the task of orienting people, especially youth, toward participation in public life in the United States. " Of course, older adults participate in national service programs, but they are underrepresented, given the demographics of the population. For example, people over the age of 50 account for only seven percent of Peace Corps volunteers (Peace Corps, 2002), and fewer than three percent of AmeriCorps volunteers are over the age of 60 (Freedman, 2002). With some notable exceptions (like Foster Grandparents and Senior Companion), the largest and most widely known national and international service programs are geared toward youth. While the bulk of programs are devoted to youth, there has been recent and substantial development of service programs in which older adults are specifically recruited and where older age is a criterion for inclusion. Through these programs, older adults take on challenging activities targeting human or environmental needs. Of course, the Corporation for National and Community Service organizes the two best known service programs. Foster Grandparents serve as mentors, tutors, and caregivers for children and youth in schools, hospitals, and youth centers (Senior Corps, 2002). …