Social Participation across Mid- and Later-Life: Evidence from the Silent Generation

• In Event: 4266 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 9. Social Engagement and Living Arrangements

Abstract

Despite the well-established benefits of social participation for individuals and communities, little is known about how it varies throughout the life course. Drawing upon data collected between 1957 and 2011 by the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (22,023 observations from a cohort of 6,627), this study makes three contributions. One, using latent class analysis, I identify social participation trajectories between the ages of 35 and 71. Two, I demonstrate how the trajectories of underlying social activities (i.e., the social participation components) contribute to these trends across mid- and later-life. Lastly, I estimate associations between individual characteristics—including high school extracurricular activity—and social participation.

I find evidence of five unique social participation trajectories. Three of these, generally, demonstrate a steady decline throughout mid- and later-life; while the other two stay at or above high participation levels over the life course. Moreover, I find that social participation trajectory declines across these ages are primarily attributable to frequency changes in (a) meeting friends and (b) group exercise; while the two activities with the greatest variation between the “high” and “declining” trajectory classes are (1) attending arts/cultural events and (2) joining voluntary associations. Lastly, I find that being female, graduating from college, and being involved with five particular high school activities are each associated with greater social participation in mid- and later- life. In total, these findings underscore the consequences of social participation decisions made in early adulthood, and highlight heterogeneity among different types of social participation activities.

Author

• Eric M. Vogelsang, Cal State-San Bernardino