I recently called a foundation executive to ask if he, too, is seeing foundations retreat from funding seniors. He agreed, wryly commenting that while foundations often view funding children as an investment, they see funding older people solely as an expense, failing to recognize the contributions of older adults through volunteerism in their communities.

In a capitalist culture where everything—even charitable work—is weighed against whether it generates a return on investment over time, it appears more “strategic” to give children books rather than to spend resources on seniors’ end-of-life care.

Here, I offer quite a different case. We should talk about and treat issues affecting the elderly as belonging to the sphere of social justice. The frequency and passion with which older adults volunteer, for example, is a core example of seniors as agents of change rather than solely as a drain on resources.

Indeed, senior volunteerism exposes a deep problem with how organizations and society at large view older adults. Seniors are routinely cast as people to be helped instead of people who help. This backwards framing reflects the same issues that have devalued other marginalized populations.

This, too, is a social justice issue. America’s older adults (aged 65 or older) are poorer than the general population, and 94 percent have at least one chronic health condition. Perhaps surprisingly, given those statistics, older adults punch above their weight when it comes to volunteering, as the only age group whose volunteer hours are increasing.

To understand this as a social justice issue, let’s first take seriously the issue of inequality among older adults, noting that seniors are a rapidly growing share of the population. We’ll then consider seniors as a neglected social justice constituency, despite growing numbers and high levels of civic activity. Finally, we’ll look at a social justice agenda for seniors that treats seniors as crucial change agents, rather than solely as victims or burdens.

Older Adults and Volunteerism: Inequality Among Older Adults

It is common knowledge that older adults are disproportionately poor and disabled compared to the overall adult population. Moreover, when seniors are also Black and Brown, immigrants, LGBTQ+, women, and/or religious minorities, they are frequently in precarious situations. Consider these social justice failures:

  • Medicaid and nursing home care: Poor people are more likely to be in nursing homes than in better care environments, with 62 percent of nursing home residents on Medicaid.
  • Racial disparities: Elderly people of color are more likely to be admitted to the lowest quality nursing facilities.
  • Gender and poverty: While a shocking 46 percent of men over 65 years old live in poverty, an even higher 65 percent of women in the same age group are in poverty.

Read the full article about older adults' volunteerism by Jan Masaoka at Nonprofit Quarterly.