The long shadow of occupation: Volunteering in retirement

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the former occupation of an employee impacts the likelihood that he or she will decide to volunteer upon retirement. Following social production function theory, we assume that beginning with retirement, the status value attached to their former occupation fades. Because volunteering has the character of a collective good, it provides an opportunity to gain social status, offsetting the loss of occupational status. However, the extent of the incentive to volunteer will be distributed unequally across occupations: the higher the former occupational status value, the higher the perceived loss of status after retirement. Thus, a job with high status value increases the incentive to volunteer in retirement. This assumption is tested using data taken from the German Socio-Economic Panel 1992–2013. The gross sample contains 1,631 workers and 589 retirees, 271 of whom transitioned into volunteering during the observation window. Based on Kaplan-Meier failure estimates, complementary log-log hazard models, and conditional effects plots, findings show a positive effect of occupational status on the transition into volunteering. Thus, the loss of high occupational status can be compensated by the social status associated with volunteering. Formal volunteering in retirement follows, albeit to a lesser extent, the logic of the occupational social strata.