NZ baby boomers and volunteering

What are New Zealand baby boomers’ future intentions relating to voluntary participation in community activities and social causes?

Three-quarters of New Zealand baby boomers agree that if they are doing something they love, it doesn’t matter whether they get paid for it, while nearly two-thirds agree that they don’t have to have a job to feel good about themselves. This suggests they distinguish between the two and do not necessarily need to be tied to the workplace to meet their “meaning” needs. This is good news for the voluntary sector, which can tap into the New Zealand baby boomer thirst for purposeful endeavour, even without the money to pay them. Provided community organisations can deliver the opportunities to learn, grow and enhance the need baby boomers have to continue to matter, they will attract a large pool of talented and experienced volunteers.

Implications for the voluntary sector
Conventional wisdom suggests that if baby boomers do not retire in the traditional sense, they will have less time available to contribute to volunteering.

Maire Dwyer (2006) theorised that increased labour force participation by middle-aged women might reduce the supply of volunteers, due to more baby boomer women participating in the workforce than their predecessors, but that a greater capacity of “larger, healthier and better educated young-olds” might boost the skills and energy of the volunteer populations. The findings of the New Zealand Boomer Dreams Study 2009 support that view.

The strong sense of responsibility felt by New Zealand baby boomers and their attitudes to vitality and work life balance mean that they will have time and energy that they are willing to contribute, and perhaps more significantly, high levels of expertise.

New Zealand baby boomers almost universally champion the obligation of responsibility over the assertion of personal rights. As a result, they are much less likely to get involved in politics or social causes that matter to them personally, and more likely to be interested in environmental issues (60%); in working to make the community a better place (70%); and giving more time (56%) or money (42%) to charity.

The next 40 years will present challenges and opportunities for the voluntary sector. They can expect an influx of committed baby boomer volunteers, but they should expect those volunteers to be as demanding, challenging and disruptive to the established way of doing things as this study has revealed in the New Zealand baby boomer character.

Dwyer (2006) posits that there will also be increased demand for volunteers to organise activities geared to the healthier, better educated baby boomers in search of leisure adventures. The findings of the New Zealand Boomer Dreams Study 2009 support that view and suggest it will be other baby boomers who will fill these roles.

The good news is that while disruption is uncomfortable, it will breathe fresh life and new vigour into the voluntary sector.

This is the age when kaumatuatanga (the role and place of the respected, responsible elder generation) will come to the fore. Visionary service sector leaders can start planning to harness the potential of this new generation of volunteer workers, mentors and leaders.

The other significant implication for the voluntary sector is the need to recognise the fiercely independent and self-reliant streak in New Zealand baby boomers. Accustomed to forging their own path and taking responsibility for themselves all of their lives, they are less likely than their predecessor generation to ask for help when they need it, or accept help when it is offered. Social services providing assistance to the aged will need to develop strategies to connect with the ageing character of this ageless generation when they finally have to accept that life is no longer a set of endless opportunities, at least for them (and currently 92% of them are not prepared to entertain that notion).

Rather than planning for the provision of services to the elderly from 65 to 85, services in the voluntary sector for the aged should plan for their clients to come to them later and perhaps for shorter periods of time, premised on the idea that New Zealand baby boomers will keep themselves healthy for as long as possible, followed by a more rapid decline, rather than a lengthy period of inactivity and a long decline into old age.