Elderly women's volunteer work

Elderly women's volunteering: a mixed methods study of resources, values, and practices in religious and humanitarian organizations

The aim of this project is to create knowledge about the resources, values ​​and practices that shape and distinguish the voluntary work of older women in Sweden. The project focuses on women born between 1940 and 1955. The elderly are a rapidly growing group in Swedish society, which puts the welfare state under pressure and means that the elderly are becoming an increasingly important resource. Women are overrepresented among those involved in voluntary work, especially in religious and humanitarian organizations. Therefore, they constitute a key group for understanding the motives for and expressions of voluntary work, which, despite this, has only been researched to a limited extent.

The project adds new knowledge by examining background factors and values ​​together with the importance of social relationships, practical tasks and feelings of responsibility and meaning in motivating and maintaining non-profit work in practice. International research emphasizes religiosity as an important driving force for non-profit work. In recent religious research, studies of “lived religion” have become increasingly prominent, focusing on how religion is practiced through practical work, relationships and moral considerations.

The project is innovative in combining theories of social and religious capital, which have been used in previous studies, with theories of lived religion in a Swedish context. Furthermore, lived religion has rarely been studied using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The project design combines a survey study of a representative population sample within the age group and case studies with observations and interviews of approximately 40 women, who actively carry out voluntary work in the Church of Sweden, the ecumenical organisation Hela Människan and the Red Cross in three smaller cities. The choice of these organizations enables an in-depth study of the importance of gender, cultural and religious background and values ​​in shaping and maintaining voluntary engagement in two of Sweden's largest civil society organizations, and what lessons can be gained from this for the future.