Age Structure of Voluntary Associations and Political Self-Interest Among the Aged

Abstract

Increased peer contact in age-graded voluntary associations is thought to be conducive to the development of political self-interest among older people. Analysis of the age structure of 304 aged individuals' association memberships revealed that desire for political change to benefit the aged, receptivity to appeals for organized political action, and willingness to actually engage in behavior designed to secure change were greatest among members of age-graded associations and lowest among older people with mixed generational memberships. When the experience of aging is taken into account, older people having no memberships, but who were experiencing a strong sense of social dislocation grounded in aging, tended to have the strongest desire for political change. Members of age-graded associations, however, whether or not they were experiencing dislocation, showed the greatest potential for actual political mobilization.