Abstract
The main objective of this research is to understand how civic participation influences the well-being of older people, thus being a key activity of active aging. In addition, it recognizes differences by gender, age group and generational cohort. The data are drawn from the European Social Survey (2002–2016), considering individuals born before 1965 in 14 European countries. A pseudo-panel has been constructed from the cross-sectional data and a cross-lagged model applied using random effects (n = 1412). In addition to demonstrating that there is a two-way association between civic participation and the indicators of well-being, this study provides empirical evidence that the relationship from past civic participation to present health and happiness is stronger than vice versa. Therefore, this result confirms the causal effect of civic participation on well-being. Consequently, civic participation and its activities promote the well-being of the elderly and should be encouraged through public and social policies.
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Acknowledgements
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Andrea Vega-Tinoco and Ana Isabel Gil-Lacruz. The review, writing and editing of the conceptual framework were performed by Andrea Vega-Tinoco and Marta Gil-Lacruz. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Andrea Vega-Tinoco and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. A special thank you to Monika Rafizadeh and Sebastian Rafizadeh for their help in the language revision of this paper.
Funding
Andrea Vega-Tinoco has been granted a pre-doctoral scholarship by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FPU18/05284). This research is also funded by a R + D + i Grant of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (CSO2017-82110-R).
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Vega-Tinoco, A., Gil-Lacruz, A.I. & Gil-Lacruz, M. Does Civic Participation Promote Active Aging in Europe?. Voluntas 33, 599–614 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00340-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00340-y