Grincevičiūtė, Ingrida

The purpose of this research: to investigate interrelation between social exclusion and volunteering in older age in Lithuania and the United Kingdom. Research methods: in the Master Thesis the analysis of scientific literature was conducted on the topic; qualitative survey using semi-structured interview method and content analysis of the collected empirical data. Sample of the research: citizens of Lithuania and the UK aged over 65, during last 12 months actively participated in volunteering activities. In total, two persons from Lithuania, and two persons from the UK were interviewed. Findings of the research: the analysis of scientific literature has revealed about the interrelation between social exclusion and volunteering seeing volunteering as a tool to involve older people in active social life thus mitigating them being socially excluded. In UK there is deep tradition involving citizens to participate in community volunteering work, statistical data shows that involvement rates in volunteering activities of UK citizens is times higher than in Lithuania. Moreover, the research topic revealed a lack of official statistical data and its academic examination in the publications about volunteering in Lithuania in order to have more clear and deep insight about this phenomenon in the country. Scholars revealed that volunteering has positive effect on the wellbeing, mental and physical health, even reduce mortality rates in long time perspective. Qualitative empirical research has revealed that people joining volunteering activities after retirements are already inclusive members of the society, who were living active social life before the retirement, mostly during the whole life course, making conclusion that personal qualities and attitude effects the well-being in old age. However, all of the interview participants confirm that volunteering help to facilitate transaction from working life to retirement, which they find quite dramatic. Moreover, various volunteering activities help people to stay physically active, also helps to maintain good social life, it even brings meaning and incentive to live with happiness and fulfilment. However, there still need to be done a lot in Lithuania to encourage people to support and participate more actively in community life as older people are used to do in the UK as well as NGOs providing various volunteering activities should put more efforts to attract older people to join.