“What am I going to be like when I'm that age?”: How older volunteers anticipate ageing through home visiting

Abstract

Volunteering is promoted as a way to improve wellbeing for older people as well as providing needed community services. Although there is evidence that volunteering is beneficial, there is less recognition of the ways that volunteering reflects and reinforces what it means to be an older person. Many older people volunteer for organisations that serve older people, which makes ageing particularly salient in these roles. Expectations that older people volunteer in later life can promote narrow conceptualisations of a valued identity which play out in these volunteer interactions. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with volunteer visitors, we identified five rhetorical strategies used to negotiate the unknown territory of ageing and anticipate future ageing identities: refusing certain ageing futures, asserting that a positive attitude is available to all regardless of health, suggesting that there has never been a better time to be old, viewing themselves as uniquely knowledgeable about the experience of ageing, and anticipating being a good recipient of later life services. Using these strategies, volunteer visitors positioned themselves as prepared for their ageing futures by their volunteering experiences. These strategies are likely to influence the experience of receiving visiting services as well as the volunteers' ability to accommodate future vulnerability. Understanding the impact of these rhetorical strategies will support the development of volunteering opportunities that are beneficial for the volunteers and considerate towards service recipients.