Either win-win deal or exploitation? Narratives surrounding volunteering in the social scientific literature

Abstract

Volunteering is an essential resource for European countries and can be an opportunity for social participation. Yet it can also lead to exploitation. Social scientific narratives on this object are important because of the role that scholars can play in the development and implementation of public policies. Drawing on the observation that older people provide a significant portion of volunteer work, this article examines to what extent and how the social scientific literature about older volunteers questions the risk of exploitation that is inherent to any form of voluntary engagement. We find that these discourses predominantly describe volunteering as a means to improve older people’s lives and as a needed contribution. Risks of exploitation are rarely addressed. To help avoid ageism in social sciences and in volunteering policies and programmes, we suggest that scholars should give more awareness to the volunteering-exploitation nexus in their studies of older volunteers.