Social Work Practice With Senior Adult Volunteers in Organizations Run By Paid Personnel
Abstract
Social Work Practice With Senior Adult Volunteers in Organizations Run By Paid Personnel SAGE Publications, Inc.1982DOI: 10.1177/089976408201100207 Mary M. Seguin University of California, Los Angeles Social Workers have only begun to realize the implications that an aging population has for their practice. Of about 24.7 million men and women age 65 or older in the United States as of July, 1979, only about 3 million or 13% were working or actively seeking work; 1 man in 5, and 2 women in 25. Men at age 65 can expect to live 14 more years, and women 18 (Weg, 1981). This means that most men and women today can expect to be retired for a number of years. Through retirement they have lost both a principal source of income from wages and a principal means through occupation for establishing personal identity and socially valued productivity. Older persons and others -- youth, women, and racial minorities -- who tend to be excluded from full participation in the labor-force attest to the urgency of modifying current ways of making income and meaningful tasks available to all persons through the life-cycle. Each cohort that retires is expected to be healthier, better educated and