Retiring into civil society

In this chapter, Laura Jones, Jesse Heley and Sophie Yarker focus on the life-course transitions in later life through exploring the ‘volunteering careers’ of retirees who ‘work’ in a range of different kinds of organisations. Three main themes emerge from their research. Firstly, they reveal that there is an increasingly blurred boundary between work and retirement, with many older people undertaking varying combinations of paid work and unpaid voluntary activity. Secondly, the decisions about the transition were contingent on a wide range of interrelated factors, such as health, finances and family. Thirdly, their interviewees’ experience of volunteering reflected their experiences of paid employment. The chapter concludes by considering whether the increasing professionalisation within civil society is in some cases placing unwanted pressure and burdens onto volunteers.