Introduction
As the world's population has aged, the social organisation of work has become a site of increasing political negotiation and transformation (Biggs, Reference Biggs2017). One dominant response, manifested in policy directives, has involved the promotion of a production-oriented view of positive ageing, in which work is offered as the primary solution to addressing ‘what to do’ with a long life for both individuals and society (Biggs, Reference Biggs2017; Biggs et al., Reference Biggs, McGann, Bowman and Kimberley2017). This emphasis on maintaining and extending conventional forms of productivity into old age aligns with the neoliberal ideal citizen as one who maintains self-reliance and optimises the conditions of life through engaging in paid work (Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015). However, the disproportionate value placed on paid work as a means of contribution has been critiqued as obscuring from view other valuable forms of work performed by older adults (see Laliberte Rudman, Reference Laliberte Rudman2006; Martinson and Minkler, Reference Martinson and Minkler2006; Dillaway and Byrnes, Reference Dillaway and Byrnes2009; Laliberte Rudman and Molke, Reference Laliberte Rudman and Molke2009). In response, a growing body of literature has sought to expand conceptions of work to include a more fulsome range of efforts contributed by older adults (e.g. Holstein, Reference Holstein1993, Reference Holstein, Minkler and Estes1998, Reference Holstein2015; Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011; Moulaert and Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013; Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015; Breheny and Stephens, Reference Breheny and Stephens2017). We aim to add to this conceptual expansion by examining the diverse forms of unpaid work performed by older adults in their local neighbourhoods, contexts which can support participation and belonging but can also contribute to exclusion (Walsh et al., Reference Walsh, Scharf and Keating2017). In what follows, we elucidate the imperative to be productive as well as criticism of this trend, discuss the ways in which older adults negotiate production-oriented positive ageing discourses in the context of their everyday lives, and expand definitions of work by illuminating a variety of efforts carried out by older adults at the neighbourhood level that are not always visible, recognised or highly valued.
Background
Since the 1960s, positive discourses of ageing – often referred to as active, productive or successful ageing – have informed collective understandings about what it means to age well (Katz and Calasanti, Reference Katz and Calasanti2015). The emergence of positive ageing discourses is often traced back to Rowe and Kahn (Reference Rowe and Kahn1987, Reference Rowe and Kahn1997, Reference Rowe and Kahn1998), who proposed three core components of successful ageing: (a) avoiding disease and disability, (b) maintaining high cognitive and physical function, and (c) sustaining engagement in community and social life. Initially, Rowe and Kahn's model of successful ageing emerged as a counter to discourses that marked the ageing body as sick, frail and dependent (Katz and Calasanti, Reference Katz and Calasanti2015). Over time, positive ageing discourses have challenged constructions of ageing that emphasise dependence and disability; however, they have also been critiqued as being taken up in ways consistent with neoliberal rationality resulting in essentialising personal responsibility for avoiding decline in old age (Katz and Calasanti, Reference Katz and Calasanti2015; Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015; Stowe and Cooney, Reference Stowe and Cooney2015). Rooted in values of activity, independence and individual responsibility, positive ageing discourses suggest that it is individual action that determines one's success in the ageing process, thereby obscuring the social, cultural, political and economic forces that shape the nature of the ageing experience (Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015).
In the time following their emergence, positive ageing discourses have evolved to include productivity as a central discursive feature; that is, consistent with neoliberalism, notions of work have become a fundamental element of the productive ageing agenda (Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (2006) mantra, live longer, work longer, has influenced social policy pertaining to pensions and work, particularly in the Western world, promoting the extension of working years as a central means to manage economic and social implications of population ageing (Biggs, Reference Biggs2017; Krekula and Vickerstaff, Reference Krekula, Vickerstaff, Ni Leine, Ogg, Rasticova, Street, Krekula, Bediova and Madero-Cabib2020). Through the expansion of a production-oriented view of positive ageing, work has been positioned not only as a means of staving off old age and avoiding dependency on the state, but also as a primary solution to questions about how to spend one's time in the face of increasing longevity (Moulaert and Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013; Biggs et al., Reference Biggs, McGann, Bowman and Kimberley2017).
More recently, critical gerontological scholars have argued that such production-oriented discourses have constructed work – particularly paid work – as a central axis along which the marginalisation of older adults operates (e.g. Laliberte Rudman, Reference Laliberte Rudman2006; Martinson and Minkler, Reference Martinson and Minkler2006; Dillaway and Byrnes, Reference Dillaway and Byrnes2009; Laliberte Rudman and Molke, Reference Laliberte Rudman and Molke2009). Accordingly, a burgeoning critical gerontology literature informed by critical feminist scholarship – of which this article is a part – seeks to expand conceptions of work to include the full range of older adults' efforts, building upon views of productivity that speak to older adults' participation in social, economic and civic affairs (e.g. World Health Organization, 2002; see Biggs et al., Reference Biggs, McGann, Bowman and Kimberley2017). Although multiple definitions of work exist, such scholarship often positions work as including not only formal participation in the labour market, but also alternate forms of doing that are not traditionally viewed as work, as well as gendered forms of labour that often remain invisible or unvalued (Bisaillon, Reference Bisaillon2012). Broadly speaking, this conception of work encompasses ‘what people do that requires some effort, that they mean to do, and that involves some acquired competence’ (Smith, Reference Smith1987: 166), with a focus on ‘everyday practices in which people engage and that their labour produces’ (Bisaillon, Reference Bisaillon2012: 620).
Expanded conceptions of work have been offered as a challenge to the principal discourse about how older adults may achieve social legitimacy and a visible identity: across production-oriented discourses, employment is positioned as the road to social inclusion in old age (Moulaert and Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013). This discourse is re/produced by what Abberley (Reference Abberley, Barnes, Oliver and Barton2002) terms the logic of productivity, a model of social membership based in notions of work that serves to value some human lives while devaluing others. The logic of productivity contributes to an understanding of citizenship that ‘expects economic participation, independence, and self-sufficiency; norms that may discord with and disadvantage the body-minds of many people’ (Katzman and Kinsella, Reference Katzman and Kinsella2018: 1437), including older adults. Accordingly, positive ageing discourses implicitly create a class of unsuccessful agers, framing those who cannot engage in paid employment, through differential access, or will not engage in employment, as failures, and potentially exacerbating precarious lives (Moulaert and Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013; Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015). Moreover, discrimination related to productivity has long been established as a gendered phenomenon, with women experiencing a ‘double jeopardy’ of discrimination because of age and gender (for further discussion of gendered ageism and work, see Itzin and Phillipson, Reference Itzin and Phillipson1993; Onyx, Reference Onyx, Patrickson and Hartmann1998; Ainsworth, Reference Ainsworth2002).
Through privileging engagement in paid work, positive ageing discourses may exclude other valuable, yet unpaid, forms of work from current understandings of productivity (Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015). Production-oriented discourses have been critiqued as informing which options for activity are acknowledged, promoted and valued for those in later life (see Laliberte Rudman, Reference Laliberte Rudman2006; Laliberte Rudman and Molke, Reference Laliberte Rudman and Molke2009). Specifically, Biggs et al. (Reference Biggs, McGann, Bowman and Kimberley2017) assert that productivist responses to increased longevity perpetuate the value imperialism of work. Originally proposed by Beck (Reference Beck2000), the value imperialism of work refers to the ways in which capitalist systems of production subordinate individuals' time use to the rhythms of the labour market. Consequently, unpaid work such as volunteering, care-giving or grandparenting – often performed by older adults, and women in particular – is not recognised as valuable, thereby making these forms of work largely invisible (Holstein, Reference Holstein1993, Reference Holstein, Minkler and Estes1998, Reference Holstein2015; Laliberte Rudman and Molke, Reference Laliberte Rudman and Molke2009; Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011; Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015). Additionally, with the decline of social programmes and resources, responsibility for work that might otherwise be carried out by the state is downloaded on to communities, families and individuals, particularly women and older adults. As a result, this essential work, for which individuals were previously paid, comes to be viewed simply as part of what older adults ‘should do’ or ‘naturally do’, further rendering these efforts invisible (Martinson and Minkler, Reference Martinson and Minkler2006).
In an attempt to disrupt the bifurcation of unpaid work from understandings of productive contributions to society, some critical gerontological scholars are reframing unpaid work by countering constructions of older adults not engaged in paid work as dependent and passive. In particular, both formal (e.g. Stephens et al., Reference Stephens, Breheny and Mansvelt2015; Breheny and Stephens, Reference Breheny and Stephens2017; Kim, Reference Kim2020) and informal volunteering (e.g. Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011; Breheny and Stephens, Reference Breheny and Stephens2017; Hand et al., Reference Hand, Laliberte Rudman, Huot, Pack and Gilliland2020) have been the focus of such critique. Through this scholarship, volunteering has been presented as a valuable contribution that older adults may make to society, in direct challenge to more narrow discourses of contribution as paid work that may operate to devalue those who, for a variety of reasons, cannot or do not engage in paid work.
Arguments for the expansion of conceptions of work within critical gerontology often reference feminist theorisations of the unpaid, unrecognised and/or invisible labour that women perform, frequently in the private sphere of social life (see Minkler and Holstein, Reference Minkler and Holstein2008; Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011; Nesteruk and Price, Reference Nesteruk and Price2011; Netting, Reference Netting2011). Historically, feminist scholarship has endeavoured to name and frame as work the diversity of contributions of effort, time and emotion traditionally performed by women in care-giving and domestic roles (e.g. Glazer, Reference Glazer1984; Smith, Reference Smith1987; Hochschild, Reference Hochschild1989; Holstein, Reference Holstein1993, Reference Holstein, Minkler and Estes1998, Reference Holstein2015; Duffy, Reference Duffy2005, Reference Duffy2007). In positioning everyday practices as a form of work (Bisaillon, Reference Bisaillon2012), the complex, invisible work that people may perform – including care work (e.g. Glazer, Reference Glazer1993; Kittay, Reference Kittay1999; Star and Strauss, Reference Star and Strauss1999; Griffith and Smith, Reference Griffith and Smith2004), emotion work (e.g. Hochschild, Reference Hochschild1983), mental work (e.g. DeVault, Reference DeVault, Ferstel and Gross1987, Reference DeVault1991; Offer, Reference Offer2014) and relational work (e.g. Locher and Watts, Reference Locher and Watts2005, Reference Locher, Watts, Bousfield and Locher2008) – are recognised as forms of contribution. Feminist critiques have long sought to make visible the disadvantages, whether social or economic, incurred by women when their significant contributions of labour are not recognised as work, if recognised at all (see Glazer, Reference Glazer1984; Hochschild, Reference Hochschild1989; Holstein, Reference Holstein1993, Reference Holstein, Minkler and Estes1998, Reference Holstein2015; Duffy, Reference Duffy2005, Reference Duffy2007; DeVault, Reference DeVault2014; DeGroot and Vik, Reference DeGroot and Vik2020; Kaplan et al., Reference Kaplan, Sabbah-Karkabi and Herzog2020). In particular, the notion of women's invisible work (see Strauss, Reference Strauss1985; Star and Strauss, Reference Star and Strauss1999; DeVault, Reference DeVault2014; Hatton, Reference Hatton2017) has, at times, been applied within gerontology to explore cumulative effects of labour disparities which render women more vulnerable to marginalisation in older adulthood (e.g. Calasanti, Reference Calasanti, Bengtson, Gans, Putney and Silverstein2009, Reference Calasanti2010; Davidson et al., Reference Davidson, DiGiacomo and McGrath2011; Cruikshank, Reference Cruikshank2013). Importantly, feminist scholarship demonstrates that invisible work, in addition to being gendered, is a phenomenon that intersects with other social locations, and cannot be adequately conceptualised without considerations of race, globalisation and migration (Zajicek et al., Reference Zajicek, Calasanti, Ginther, Summers, Calasanti and Slevin2006; Ferrer et al., Reference Ferrer, Grenier, Brotman and Koehn2017).
Despite the important progress made within the critical feminist literature towards the conceptual expansion of work, as well as the ways in which gendered expectations around work are compounded by race, class, citizenship and the like, this scholarship has been critiqued as failing to attend adequately to the experiences of older adults, including older women (e.g. Zajicek et al., Reference Zajicek, Calasanti, Ginther, Summers, Calasanti and Slevin2006; Calasanti, Reference Calasanti2010; Barken, Reference Barken2019). Scholarship that is situated at the intersection of gender and age contends that feminist scholarship on unpaid work, and care work in particular, has historically perpetuated ageist assumptions regarding older adults as unproductive (e.g. as recipients rather than providers of care work; Zajicek et al., Reference Zajicek, Calasanti, Ginther, Summers, Calasanti and Slevin2006; Barken, Reference Barken2019). The benefits of attending to age relations are apparent when considering the ways in which scholarship that draws together both critical feminist and critical gerontological perspectives readily challenges such ageist assumptions. For example, in their study of Chicana's unpaid care work and old age, Zajicek et al. (Reference Zajicek, Calasanti, Ginther, Summers, Calasanti and Slevin2006) present findings that contradict the commonly held ageist assumptions that older adults are dependent and that care work is the sole domain of women, while also speaking to considerations of race and class in relation to invisible work, care-giving and perceptions of older adults. In highlighting the ways in which unpaid care work extends into later life for both women and men, Zajicek et al. (Reference Zajicek, Calasanti, Ginther, Summers, Calasanti and Slevin2006) demonstrate the value of such an approach to challenge limited understandings of dependence, care-giving and ‘women's work’.
Also largely absent from scholarship aiming to expand conceptions of work is a consideration of efforts contributed by older adults at the community level. Much of the scholarship in this area – both in the realms of critical gerontology and critical feminism – explores understandings of unpaid work performed at the individual level (e.g. care work and household work, see Strauss, Reference Strauss1985; Glazer, Reference Glazer1993; Kittay, Reference Kittay1999; Star and Strauss, Reference Star and Strauss1999; Griffith and Smith, Reference Griffith and Smith2004). Neighbourhoods, however, are a central context in the lives of older adults (Wiles et al., Reference Wiles, Allen, Palmer, Hayman, Keeling and Kerse2009), crucial to older adults' participation, inclusion and belonging (World Health Organization, 2007). Neighbourhoods can be sites of exclusion (Walsh et al., Reference Walsh, Scharf and Keating2017). An emerging body of research is beginning to acknowledge the need to explore the significant, often unpaid, contributions that older adults may make to their communities, and their neighbourhoods, specifically (see Stephens et al., Reference Stephens, Breheny and Mansvelt2015; Breheny and Stephens, Reference Breheny and Stephens2017; Hand et al., Reference Hand, Laliberte Rudman, Huot, Pack and Gilliland2020). For instance, Hand et al. (Reference Hand, Laliberte Rudman, Huot, Pack and Gilliland2020) suggest that older adults can have agency over their neighbourhood contexts and make active contributions to shape everyday neighbourhood life. The current lack of attention offered to the work performed by older adults at the community level further speaks to a need to diversify understandings of forms of work perceived as aligning with productive contributions to society.
Research aim
A number of gaps exist across theoretical discussions of the conception of work, including around an intersectional analysis that takes into account cross-cutting inequalities along the lines of age and gender, as well as a consideration of contributions made at the neighbourhood level. To address these gaps, this article draws upon conceptions of work positioned at the intersection of critical gerontology and critical feminism to explore the unpaid labour performed by older adults within their neighbourhoods. Specifically, we aim to examine the various forms of unpaid work that older adults carry out at the neighbourhood level, as well as the ways in which older adults negotiate production-oriented positive ageing discourses in the context of their everyday lives. In so doing, we intend to illuminate the complex, often invisible contributions older adults make to their communities while also offering a critique of the imperative to be productive, even outside the formal labour market.
Method
We present findings generated through a critical analysis of qualitative interview data that are part of a larger ethnographic study that explored the complex processes by which the inclusion and exclusion of older adults occurs within neighbourhoods, with a particular focus on experiences related to older adults' neighbourhood activities, social interactions and community mobility. We found that many participants talked about the ways in which they contributed to their neighbourhoods through efforts of unpaid work. These discussions were often coupled with references to assumptions about the value of engaging in productive activity, even after retirement from paid employment. Informed by these preliminary findings and drawing on conceptions of work stemming from critical feminist and critical gerontological literatures (e.g. Smith, Reference Smith1987; Holstein, Reference Holstein1993, Reference Holstein, Minkler and Estes1998, Reference Holstein2015; Bisaillon, Reference Bisaillon2012), we undertook a focused analysis of the forms of unpaid work that participants described carrying out within their neighbourhoods, and how these representations related to dominant notions of work.
Research setting
The data analysed in this article were drawn from a larger ethnographic study focused on the experiences of older residents living in two separate neighbourhoods in a mid-sized city in Ontario, Canada; our present analysis is focused on the experiences of residents living in one of these two neighbourhoods only. This choice was made for several reasons; namely it was participants living in this particular neighbourhood who talked most explicitly about the unpaid work they performed at the community level. Additionally, this neighbourhood has a history of being regarded as an established community within the city, in that it possesses relatively distinct geographical boundaries and an identifiable community culture. The neighbourhood of interest is primarily a socio-economically diverse residential area close to the city centre. The built environment consists mostly of older, densely packed single-detached houses, but also contains some more recently constructed houses and several large apartment blocks, including co-operatives and seniors' apartments. The neighbourhood contains a traditional ‘main street’ business corridor, which is home to a diversity of commercial outlets (e.g. shops, restaurants), entertainment venues (e.g. theatres, music halls) and institutional uses (e.g. churches, social service agencies). Although often referred to as a working-class neighbourhood due to its industrial history, many of its factories have since been shuttered. It is often the focus of stigmatisation by those from outside the neighbourhood due to social challenges, including those related to poverty and substance use. However, the neighbourhood is experiencing a revitalisation and is home to an active community association and strong community culture of civic engagement.
Participants and data generation
Following ethical approval, a total of 17 participants (13 women, four men) aged 65 years or older were recruited from the neighbourhood of interest. Residents were eligible to participate if they: (a) had lived in the neighbourhood for at least 1 year, (b) were retired or engaged in part-time paid employment, (c) were able to converse in English, and (d) were able to access the community, either alone or with assistance. Participants ranged in age from 65 to 87 years, and their length of residence in the neighbourhood ranged from 2 to 50 years. All participants but one were born in Canada; one participant was born in England. Ten participants lived in houses, while seven lived in apartment buildings, including those identified as seniors' buildings and affordable housing. Thirteen participants were retired, three were engaged in part-time paid employment and one was seeking employment. Ten participants reported having some money left over at the end of the month (i.e. no financial concerns), five reported having just enough money to make ends meet and two reported not having enough money to make ends meet. Ten participants were divorced or separated, four were married or in common-law relationships, two were widowed and one was single. Eight participants reported experiencing very good or excellent health, seven reported good health and two reported fair health.
Participants were invited to complete three types of qualitative interviews, including additional spatial and visual data generation: (a) a narrative interview (see Reissman, Reference Reissman2007; Chase, Reference Chase, Denzin and Lincoln2011; Hand et al., Reference Hand, Laliberte Rudman, Huot, Gilliland and Pack2017); (b) Global Positioning System (GPS) logging, completing an activity diary and a follow-up interview (see Shoval et al., Reference Shoval, Auslander, Cohen-Shalom, Isaacson, Landau and Heinik2010; Hand et al., Reference Hand, Laliberte Rudman, Huot, Gilliland and Pack2017); and (c) a go-along interview or a photo elicitation interview (see Kusenbach, Reference Kusenbach2003; Carpiano, Reference Carpiano2009; Hand et al., Reference Hand, Laliberte Rudman, Huot, Gilliland and Pack2017). Narrative interviews involved asking participants to tell stories about their experiences of living and doing in their neighbourhoods over time. Specifically, questions were designed to elicit participant narratives primarily related to the activities they do, the places they go and the people with whom they interact. Following their participation in the narrative interviews, participants were asked to wear a small GPS device which automatically logged their locations while engaging in out-of-home activities over the span of four days (two weekdays and two weekend days). Participants were also asked to complete an activity diary about where they went, the activities they did, their travel methods and their social interactions during the course of the four-day span. Follow-up interviews incorporated both maps developed from GPS data and the activity diaries to focus on participants' daily lives in their neighbourhoods as contextualised in time and space. Last, participants were asked to choose to participate in either a go-along interview or a photo elicitation interview. Go-along interviews involved travelling to a neighbourhood destination of participants' choosing. During this travel, participants were asked about the routes they took, the places they visited and the activities in which they engaged. Simultaneously, the interviewer conducted participant observation, allowing for insights about how participants physically and socially transacted with their environments. Photo elicitation interviews involved asking participants to take photographs of a variety of places they go in their neighbourhoods. Follow-up interviews focused on participants' interactions with a variety of physical and social aspects of the neighbourhood places depicted in the photographs.
Within this article, the various forms of qualitative interviews serve as the sources of data analysed. Although maps, developed through GPS-derived location data, and photos were generated as data within the larger ethnographic study, these data sources were not analysed for the purposes of this article. Rather, they were used to guide interview processes and contextualise data during the analysis process. The duration of these interviews ranged from approximately 60 to 90 minutes each. Each interview was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Data analysis
Data were analysed using the theoretically flexible method of reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, Reference Braun and Clarke2006, Reference Braun and Clarke2019) in combination with memo writing (Birks et al., Reference Birks, Chapman and Francis2008). Although the following stages of analysis are described sequentially, they were performed in an iterative, non-linear manner, with each stage of analysis ultimately informing the others.
Informed by Braun and Clarke (Reference Braun and Clarke2006, Reference Braun and Clarke2019), we began the analytical process by familiarising ourselves with the data, reading and rereading interview transcripts while noting initial reactions and impressions. Next, we flagged interview segments in which participants discussed their performance of unpaid work within their neighbourhood. Segments in which participants discussed the work of other older adult neighbourhood residents, as well as beliefs about productivity, were also flagged. Informed by expanded conceptions of work stemming from critical feminist and critical gerontological literatures, we generated initial codes using these interview segments. We then re-examined these interview segments to focus on the ways in which participants represented their unpaid work in relation to productive-oriented positive ageing discourses, creating more initial codes. Last, we re-focused the analysis from the level of codes to the broader level of themes, with the refinement of themes taking place through a process of memo writing and discussions among co-authors.
In the process of memo writing (see Birks et al., Reference Birks, Chapman and Francis2008), we created both analytic and reflexive memos. In writing analytic memos, we considered patterns present both within and across interview transcripts, facilitating the development of conceptual linkages between raw data and broader abstractions, helping to explain the various forms of unpaid work that participants carried out at the neighbourhood level, as well as the ways in which they represented this work in relation to production-oriented positive ageing discourses. In writing reflexive memos, we reflected upon the ways in which our previous experiences, beliefs and assumptions shaped the ways in which we generated and analysed the data. Both analytical and reflexive memos were used to support the generation and refinement of themes through the thematic analysis process.
Findings
We have organised our findings into three themes, capturing the ways in which participants took up, negotiated and challenged productivist discourses in the everyday: (a) formal volunteering as an analogue to paid work, (b) informal caring as relational work, and (c) informal civic participation as generative work. Although we have categorised the unpaid work that participants performed in their neighbourhood into three forms, they are often interconnected and complementary.
Formal volunteering as an analogue of paid work
This first theme details discussions of work performed by participants through their engagement in a range of formal, recognised volunteer roles, primarily located within institutional settings (e.g. theatres, churches, social service agencies, community associations). Many of these institutional settings endorsed missions aimed at serving the community, e.g. through providing equitable access to health and/or social supports.
In parallel with production-oriented discourses that emphasise the extension of one's working life into older adulthood, participants discussed their engagement in volunteer work as closely resembling paid employment in its structure. That is, many participants described adhering to routinised work schedules, sometimes volunteering five days per week; working under the direction of a supervisor; and regularly interacting with others who engaged in similar forms of work (i.e. other volunteers). Participants discussed this work using language typical of paid employment, including explicitly referring to volunteering as ‘work’ or as a ‘job’. For example, P14, a 75-year-old woman, talked about participating in an application process to secure a ‘volunteer job’ at a local agency, and described her work as performed in shifts:
When I [moved into the neighbourhood], I thought I'd like to do something because I was pretty ambulatory at the time. I thought, ‘Well, what are those people doing across the street?’ And then I realised it [was] a mission. So, I went and applied for a job to volunteer. I worked at the mission for approximately two years. [I] did the afternoon shifts.
Across accounts, discussions of volunteer work reflected the assumption that to engage in forms of work that closely approximate paid employment is to engage in productive time use. In particular, participants described the ways in which performing volunteer work allowed them the opportunity to remain productive in the absence of paid employment. Embedded within these discussions of productivity was the notion that, to achieve social legitimacy, one must fill time by engaging in work self-perceived as productive and supporting involvement in the community. For instance, P17, a 77-year-old man, alluded to feeling as though he was engaged in productivity through his performance of ‘worthwhile’ volunteer work:
I like … the opportunity [volunteering] gave me to do something that I felt was worthwhile and productive as long as I could stand it. It got me in touch with a lot of people [in the community] … I feel an involvement.
Participants positioned volunteering as a preferred use of time in contrast to engaging in leisure-based pursuits. Indeed, volunteer work was discussed as a way of positively contributing to the neighbourhood, drawing upon an emphasis on valuations of time use aligned with production-oriented discourses. For example, P15, a 77-year-old woman, talked about watching television as a waste of time in comparison to ‘keeping busy’ through volunteering:
[Volunteering] gives me a lot of pleasure … I'm semi-retired. I do bookkeeping at home, but other than that, we used to sit at home. I sit there – what am I going to do? Sit there and look at the four walls?
Assumptions about the value – and indeed, the necessity – of remaining engaged in productive work in older age were not simply discussed in relation to participants' own actions. In parallel with notions of productive activity as the primary means through which older adults may achieve social legitimacy, thereby positioning older adults who cannot or choose not to work as ‘unsuccessful’ agers, participants articulated the importance of productivity as a value that should guide others' behaviour, as well: ‘I think volunteering is really important. A lot of [older adults] that are bored, sitting around, they could be doing things’ (P14). The ways in which participants negotiated such expectations of productivity for themselves and others varied; although many readily took up these discourses in some aspects of their lives, others described challenging societal expectations about volunteering in older age. For instance, P1, a 67-year-old woman, described questioning an acquaintance's insistence that she engage in some form of productive work in retirement. Despite her resistance to these expectations, P1 noted that she eventually participated in volunteer work after she retired:
[An acquaintance] kept pushing me to get a job when I retired. And, I'm thinking, ‘What are you … so insistent on this?’ … And then, I thought, ‘Well, gee.’ As soon as I retired, I started [volunteering] and I really enjoyed that.
Interwoven throughout participants' descriptions of their contributions to their neighbourhood through volunteer work was mention of benefits to the individual imparted through this form of work, reflecting, in part, neoliberal values of sustained activity, independence, and individual responsibility for health and wellbeing. Participants discussed the ways in which they were able to fulfil personal needs once met through paid employment, including maintaining one's physical health, forming social connections and feeling as though one is a contributing member of society. For example, after moving away from a previous employment position, P16, a 65-year-old woman, talked about renewing her sense of purpose and re-establishing connections with others through formal volunteer work:
I'm a very social person. I need a lot of stimulation … So, when I was out of a job … it was horrible … So, I had to find things to fill my time. And, I am a social person and I like … to be helpful and feel like I'm doing something good.
Conversely, participants also discussed the ways in which they negotiated the negative aspects of volunteer work, often spurred by an underappreciation of the value of participants' efforts, and thereby challenged dominant assumptions of volunteer work as inherently positive. Participants' discussions of volunteer work were sometimes reflective of the offloading of responsibility on to those seen as lacking in contributive efforts through paid work and perpetuating the expectation that older adults contribute through volunteer work. They described, at times, feeling overworked and undervalued in their roles as volunteers. Several participants discussed being subject to incredible demands placed on them through their volunteer roles, as well as the ways in which their ageing bodies shaped their ability to meet these demands. For instance, P6, a 75-year-old woman, described how a change in health status shaped her performance of volunteer work:
This spring, I had a stroke and I lost the vision in this eye. So, [in] both of my volunteer jobs, I had to change what I was doing because I can't handle money now. I can't differentiate between coins … [my loss of vision] is kind of limiting.
In the same turn, P6 discussed the demands placed on her by the organisation with which she volunteered, with little consideration of how her experience of ill-health in more recent months might shape her ability, or desire, to respond to these demands:
I'm actually going in [to my place of volunteering] next week to talk to them about how I'm feeling. Because I've heard other people say similar kinds of things that I'm saying, that it's a lot of work for volunteers. You're there for six or seven hours, which is a large commitment of time in the evening. It's sometimes 11:30 [pm] before we finish. And it's quite hard work, actually.
Discussions of volunteer burnout were often framed as a personal failing that originated in the body rather than as a structural problem (e.g. inflexible, demanding and/or unaccommodating volunteer positions). That is, although the suggestion that organisations were asking too much of their volunteers was at times raised, participants more frequently articulated their pulling away from volunteer work as a consequence of changes to their ageing bodies, reflecting positive ageing discourses that emphasise self-sufficiency to support societal participation and contribution. For example, P17 discussed endeavouring to reduce the hours of volunteer work he performed in the neighbourhood:
I might even cut that back a little bit more. I'm trying to wean [my volunteer organisation] from me, from the expectation that [I will continue to work at a rapid pace] … I'm just getting [more] tired … pulling myself together at 8:30 in the evening and dragging myself out, it's getting to be harder work than it used to be.
In this way, P17 illustrated a sentiment shared by many participants: that the responsibility for volunteer burnout lay with participants themselves rather than with organisations for the unrealistic expectations they may place on volunteers. In these ways, participants' statements about the negative effects of volunteering may be seen as a result of a neoliberal approach to governing older adults, i.e. responsibility for the health and wellbeing of communities is downloaded on to individuals, thereby informing expectations about what older adults ‘should do’, even, at times, at the expense of their own health and wellbeing.
Informal caring as relational work
The second theme details discussions of the informal care work performed by participants involving the use of relational skills (e.g. empathy, compassion) to tend to relationships with others. Participants described engaging in a variety of forms of informal care work in their neighbourhoods, primarily through providing a diversity of supports to neighbours (e.g. bringing food to neighbours after an illness or injury, performing home maintenance tasks like shovelling snow for neighbours whose ageing bodies did not allow for such work). In alignment with a neoliberal agenda emphasising individual responsibility for health and wellbeing in older age, participants' care work was sometimes discussed as a means of bridging gaps in available health care or social services and supports. Indeed, the existence of extensive informal networks of care was presented as deeply rooted in neighbourhood culture:
I think that people would help you even if they didn't know you. I think that's the kind of neighbourhood we have, that even if you don't know the person, you would help if [they] looked like they needed it. (P9, 66-year-old woman)
Adhering to residents' expectations around the neighbourhood's culture of care, as well as neoliberal values of independence and individual responsibility, participants articulated their participation in a process of reciprocity with their neighbours: participants discussed operating under the assumption that if, while in their relative youth, they cared for their elderly neighbours, they would receive similar care when they themselves reached older age. However, it was noted that it was often other older neighbourhood residents, including themselves, who upheld the largely unspoken agreement among residents to perform care work to support older adults within the neighbourhood. For example, P10, a 65-year-old woman, described the realised reciprocal expectation of care she had established with a neighbour to look after each other's affairs, even after death:
I have her key, she has my key, we have each other's phone numbers. [We] kind of keep an eye on each other. If something was to happen to her, then I have her family's number so I can contact them and vice versa, she has mine.
In alignment with a focus on personal responsibility for avoiding decline in old age intrinsic to production-oriented positive ageing discourses, participants discussed their performance of informal care work within the neighbourhood in ways that reinforced the notion that such care work was expected not only by the broader society, but by other neighbourhood residents as well, rendering it largely invisible. That is, participants spoke about performing care work in service of their neighbours so as to be seen as complying with behavioural norms of the neighbourhood. The expectation that older adults should care for other neighbourhood residents was not only discussed as applying to the care of neighbours with whom participants had close relationships, but also as extending to caring for neighbours with whom participants had no prior relationship. P9, for instance, talked about the responsibility she and her husband held for looking after neighbours not well known to her:
We've been able to call 911 for an ambulance or something, because you know people's habits. And they might not be your friend, and you might not talk to them ever, but you know so-and-so goes out at such-and-such a time every day. How come not today? [Those] sorts of things. Because my husband's gone and knocked on the door to make sure someone's alright.
Although both women and men discussed the expectation of reciprocity of care that existed between neighbours, it was men who more often described engaging in care work related to supporting neighbours to manage their households, e.g. shovelling a neighbour's driveway or mowing a neighbour's lawn. On the other hand, it was women who more often described engaging in care work related to supporting neighbours' self-care needs, e.g. cooking for a neighbour or driving a neighbour to a doctor's appointment. Ultimately, informal care work was frequently discussed as ‘women's work’, predicated on gendered assumptions about women's possession of sophisticated relational skills. Women were positioned as the carers and connectors of the neighbourhood, as articulated in a 75-year-old woman's (P5) discussion of the care work in which she engaged, as compared to the care work (or relative lack thereof) in which her husband engaged:
It's interesting, because it's a lot of men that do some of these [coffee group] things and they're not as social. [My husband], he goes for a coffee every morning. He talks to these guys. And I said to him the other day, ‘If you didn't go for two weeks, would they call here?’ … It's a different thing between men and women. He said, ‘Why would they call?’ And I said, ‘When I was sick, people wanted to know if there was something they could do. Could they bring over some soup or something?’ I guess it's what women do, right?
Inequities related to expectations around care work were not only apparent along lines of age and gender but also socio-economic status, amplified within a context marked by state retreat from funding for personal or home care services. Often, it was lower-income, apartment-dwelling and single female participants who described carrying out the most labour-intensive forms of care work in service of their neighbours and, thus, the larger neighbourhood. Reflected in these participants' accounts was, again, a downloading of responsibility on to individuals, often neighbours, for the care of others in alignment with neoliberal rationality, particularly for those whose socio-economic resources rendered forms of private care untenable. For example, P14, a woman living in a seniors' apartment building, discussed the intimate care she provided for neighbours who were in ill-health:
I would bring [one of my neighbours] doughnuts and bagels, or whatever she wanted. I'd bring her a bag, I'd bring [another neighbour] a bag, and whoever couldn't get around, I'd bring them doughnuts and just tie them to their door. Then, I brought [my neighbour] clothes, because she couldn't get out. She's 100, but she does walk the street.
P14 also described herself as being a recipient of similar care following her own illness, as carried out by other women living in her apartment building, again speaking to the reciprocal nature of the informal care work performed within the neighbourhood and the ways in which some older adults work to bridge gaps in care that might otherwise be performed by social services:
[My neighbours] came in, and they cleaned. And one of the ladies [in the apartment] above … would bring me homemade Jell-O because she knew I could eat that. So, I was well taken care of here … They made sure that I was fed.
Issues of payment for one's caring efforts were rarely discussed; however, when the topic of remuneration was raised, participants commonly responded with assurances that they enjoyed this work. In describing her work providing child care for a neighbour, P18, a 74-year-old woman, said:
There's a mother up here. She has a little four-year-old son and I babysit him for a few hours a week, which is kind of nice. Not for payment. I just go in and … get him ready for bed and tuck him in. And it's just nice, just nice to have that interaction.
As in their discussions of formal volunteer work, participants discussed experiencing feeling overworked and undervalued in relation to their performance of informal care work. Many participants, particularly those who frequently engaged in various forms of care work, expressed encountering challenges related to managing competing demands around time use. Specifically, participants described the perception that they were expected by other neighbourhood residents to prioritise the performance of care work above almost all other forms of doing, leading to the neglect or complete abandonment of many other activities valued by participants, including other forms of paid and unpaid work. Some participants challenged the notion that older adults should be held responsible for caring for their neighbours by discussing a need for help with such care work. However, these critiques were also often coupled with expressions of feeling compelled to continue providing care, given they were often their neighbours' only sources of support in light of a lack of adequate structural supports and services to neighbourhood residents. For instance, P8, a 74-year-old woman, described feeling as though she had to care for her neighbour, despite wanting to discourage her neighbour from relying on her for support:
I'm going to find out [whether my neighbour is eligible for free landline telephone service] for her because nobody else is doing it. But I'm not going to encourage her to start leaning on me because … quite honestly, I don't have the patience. Personally … I don't think she should be in the [apartment] building. I think she should be in a facility where they can take care of her all the time.
P8's statement reflected the consequences of positive ageing discourses found across participants' accounts: offloading responsibility for avoiding disease, disability and decline on to individuals, with little consideration of the ways in which structural forces shape the ageing experience or the gendered implications of such care work.
Informal civic participation as generative work
The third theme details discussions of work performed by participants to contribute to the success of the neighbourhood, including through supporting the wellbeing of future generations of neighbourhood residents. Participants described engaging in a range of types of informal work related to civic participation in their neighbourhoods (e.g. organising demonstrations to protect neighbourhood resources, reporting damages to neighbourhood infrastructure to local officials), with the most explicit references to contributing to the neighbourhood itself evident within these descriptions. Participants' descriptions of civic participation can be interpreted as a form of what we have termed generative work, i.e. they referred to this work as a means of investing in the future wellbeing of the neighbourhood (for reference, see Erikson, Reference Erikson1950). Although a form of productive work, generative work is unique in its focus on contributions that result in delayed (i.e. future) benefits for community members, rather than present-day benefits alone. In particular, participants talked about civic participation as a vehicle for ‘bettering’ the neighbourhood, and challenging negative assumptions about the neighbourhood and its residents as a result. For example, P17 described working to change outsiders' perspectives of the neighbourhood by documenting ‘successful’ events for the local news:
One of the things that struck me when I arrived [in the neighbourhood] was people didn't say, ‘Welcome to this wonderful neighbourhood!’ What they said to me was, ‘You're going to find this neighbourhood is not nearly as bad as people say.’ I thought, you know, this neighbourhood needs a little bit of bucking up, a little bit of pride.
In discussing doing work to invest in the future wellbeing of the neighbourhood, participants subtly made reference to the moral implications of this work by alluding to assumptions about the way neighbourhoods ‘should be’ and dutifully upholding these ideals through performing work commonly perceived as taking place in ‘good’ neighbourhoods. Participants' discussions of investing in the future were often complicated by desires to reintroduce elements of the neighbourhood's past or preserve elements of the neighbourhood's current state. For instance, P20, a 66-year-old man, described the work he had done to help restore parts of the neighbourhood to their previous states, in alignment with his perspective of how a good neighbourhood should develop over time:
[My work is] part of the revitalisation initiative. These are the kinds of things that we wanted to happen in the [business] corridor … certainly in terms of what they've done to the buildings. So, you see a building that's been refurbished and [is] very attractive … It's what the commercial corridors in neighbourhoods should be like. The old buildings are refurbished, being reused; the architecture is pleasant; the things that you can buy are local, they're good quality.
Although a number of participants articulated clear visions for the future, including expectations about the way neighbourhoods should be – and by extension, how residents should behave – not all shared the same vision. In contrast to socially sanctioned forms of civic participation, such as working to revitalise the neighbourhood through professionally refurbishing building facades, some participants described working to maintain the neighbourhood's wellbeing through non-socially sanctioned means. For example, P7, a 67-year-old man, described working to maintain the neighbourhood's wellbeing by spray painting over graffiti found on public property. Despite P7 engaging in work in his older age and that the stated purpose of this work was for the betterment of the neighbourhood, he described often doing his spray painting late at night, with much of his work largely hidden from other residents' awareness:
Oftentimes when I'm … on a walk, I'll take a spray can of silver paint with me and [use it to] bury whatever graffiti I come across … I've gone through 20 or 30 cans of silver spray paint, burying graffiti wherever I see it in my neighbourhood. And I'll make a mental note if I see a particularly large one and head back there [the] next time it's convenient and bury it.
Across accounts, participants emphasised the importance of engaging in civic participation work in older age, even if they themselves were not the intended beneficiaries of these efforts, thereby drawing upon expectations around remaining productive, in any form, consistent with positive ageing discourses. For example, P5 talked about rallying alongside her neighbours to save the local elementary school, despite not having school-aged children:
[Rallying to save the school] pulled everyone together. I certainly don't have school-aged children, and yet I fought as hard as anyone who had a child that was going to that school because [having access to a school] is what I think makes a rich community.
Participants also described experiencing benefits themselves from their civic participation work, particularly related to forming connections with others. About starting a lending library in her front yard, P5 said:
It's a free library … In the summer, when we're sitting outside on the verandah, and then people come up and get a book, you can talk to them. And so, again, it's just another way of connecting to the community that I think is important.
In parallel to positive ageing discourses that responsibilise older adults for the maintenance and promotion of their own health and wellbeing, participants discussed the ways in which they and other older adult residents shouldered responsibility for ensuring the wellbeing of the neighbourhood through civic participation. They often articulated their engagement in civic participation work as a means through which they were able to adhere to the expectation that older adults work to care for and protect the wellbeing of the neighbourhood and its residents. For instance, P7 discussed spray painting over graffitied public property as offering him the opportunity to enact his ‘civic duty’ within his neighbourhood, specifically:
As far as I'm concerned it's a civic duty to do my part to dissuade and reduce the amount of graffiti in my neighbourhood … It's all in my neighbourhood [that] I do this. Because, as far as I'm concerned, I can't afford to buy all that paint. And if other neighbours [in other neighbourhoods] don't care, then that's their concern. It's not my concern. Only in my neighbourhood.
Often, this expectation of care and protection was more figurative, as in reporting potentially dangerous conditions in the physical environment to local officials: ‘If a streetlight goes out, I'll call [city officials] up and say, “There's a streetlight out, you know”’ (P11, 78-year-old man). Although less frequently discussed, participants also expressed that this expectation of care and protection was literal: participants described being held to account for ensuring physical safety within the neighbourhood. For instance, in talking about how she worked to monitor access to the front door of her apartment building, P12, an 87-year-old woman, described being told by management that it was residents themselves who carried primary responsibility for safety within the building:
That's the only experience I've had with [a break-in] and it's because I left my door unlocked. But how he got in here, I have no idea … [The apartment building management has been] pounding it into everybody's head, ‘Do not let anybody in.’ If [building residents] see you with the [proper identification] and you say a name that you're visiting, not just a grandmother, but a name, then we know, and we can let you in. But otherwise, don't let anybody in.
Evident within participants' discussions of responsibility for caring for and protecting the neighbourhood was the gendered nature of these expectations. Consistent with dominant notions of productivity, participants discussed the assumption that older adults who had not had children, especially women, were expected to contribute to the neighbourhood through civic participation at a greater frequency than their peers. In the absence of the ‘need’ to perform family-centred work, participants suggested that women were expected to engage in neighbourhood-centred work to be perceived as valuable community members, and to enact their role as ‘nurturers’ with a presumed innate need to care for others. For instance, P15 described engaging in civic participation work because she had available time, in contrast to women who were ‘busy with their families’:
I'm letting [my neighbours] know that [I can do the work], because they don't have time. They're busy with their families and work, and I'm just here looking for something to do.
In this way, P15 reflected dominant notions of work and productivity shared by many participants: that paid employment is viewed as work and that parents (especially mothers) are viewed as busy or preoccupied, resulting in the expectation that those who are not engaged in paid work or parenting (i.e. assumed to be older adults) should be responsible for caring for one's neighbourhood through civic participation.
Discussion
Taken together, our findings serve to expand conceptions of work through illuminating the various forms of unpaid contributions participants make within their neighbourhoods, as well as the ways in which participants negotiate production-oriented positive ageing discourses in the context of their everyday lives. The forms of work carried out by participants, including formal volunteering, informal caring and informal civic participation – all directed in some way to the betterment of their local neighbourhoods – speak to a diversity of efforts carried out at the neighbourhood level that far exceeds the narrow conceptualisation of productivity promulgated through contemporary production-oriented positive ageing discourses. Although volunteering and care work have been increasingly recognised as forms of productive time use, especially within critical gerontological and critical feminist literatures (e.g. Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011; Stephens et al., Reference Stephens, Breheny and Mansvelt2015; Breheny and Stephens, Reference Breheny and Stephens2017; Barken, Reference Barken2019), our findings contribute to the expansion of conceptions of work by presenting informal civic participation as a form of productive time use and situating these various forms of work at the level of the neighbourhood. Through examining the work carried out by participants at the neighbourhood level specifically, our findings make visible the active contributions that older adults may make to their communities and the ways in which neighbourhood contexts may shape such contributions, thereby adding to the diversification of understandings of the forms of labour perceived as aligning with productive contributions to society. Further, our findings reflect the largely gendered and classed nature of expectations for continued productivity into older age, as well as the numerous challenges faced by ageing individuals to perform this work with little consideration of the resources (e.g. health, financial) required to sustain such contributions. Finally, our findings may be used to support the organisations and communities that benefit from the unpaid labour of older adults to reconsider the ways in which they support forms of productivity that align with ageing bodies (i.e. promote accessibility), as well as support forms of participation that do not perpetuate gender and class inequities.
In response to production-oriented positive ageing discourses that position productive time use, specifically paid work, as the primary pathway to social inclusion in older age (see Moulaert and Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013), our findings suggest that a range of forms of work may be seen to enable inclusion. Participants discussed the notion of contributing to society, and to their neighbourhood in particular, as important in older age; it was through the carrying out of unpaid labour at the neighbourhood level that participants enacted this contribution. At times, participants positioned these contributions as enabling social inclusion, particularly through the related development and maintenance of social connections, as well as the adherence to norms of self-presentation related to good citizenship. These findings are supported by previous critical gerontological scholarship that has challenged narrow discourses of contribution as paid work by presenting other forms of labour, and volunteer work in particular, as valuable forms of contribution that older adults may make to society (e.g. Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011; Stephens et al., Reference Stephens, Breheny and Mansvelt2015; Breheny and Stephens, Reference Breheny and Stephens2017). Our findings add to these critiques by broadening understandings of productive time use beyond paid work alone, as well as illuminating benefits related to inclusion that may be experienced by the older adults who carry out this labour.
However, the notion of productive time use as the road to social inclusion for older adults is a double-edged sword (for critiques, see Abberley, Reference Abberley, Barnes, Oliver and Barton2002; Moulaert and Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013; Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015), and we do not mean to imply that our findings suggest that older adults only experience social inclusion through the performance of unpaid work at the neighbourhood level. Rather, our findings also speak to the exclusionary aspects of carrying out unpaid work within one's neighbourhood. Across accounts, tensions between production-oriented positive ageing discourses and participants' experiences of work were evident and were often connected to the general lack of discursive and social value assigned to these forms of work (see Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011). Although some of the forms of labour performed by participants were explicitly named and framed as work, more often, much of their labour was tacit and not acknowledged as work (i.e. was rendered invisible). Accordingly, much of the work carried out by participants was not supported in ways that would align with the resource needs of older adults. Our findings are indicative of a hierarchy of valued time use in older age: forms of labour that have, over time, become increasingly recognised as productive (i.e. unpaid work that approximates paid employment, such as formal volunteering) were frequently framed as work and were discussed as most valued. Additional forms of labour, including informal care work that draws on relational skills or unpaid civic participation work that aims to contribute to the future success of the neighbourhood, were rarely articulated or acknowledged as work, especially as work with similar or equal value to paid work, by participants or others discussed in their narratives. Despite participants' accounts illustrating the significant contributions of time and effort dedicated to their neighbourhood, as well as the consequences that such undervalued work has on the bodies and minds of participants, such efforts were alternately discussed as ways of keeping busy in older age, bridging gaps in social services, or simply helping to look out for one's fellow neighbours and the broader neighbourhood. Further, these efforts were framed as expected of older adults within the neighbourhood's perceived culture of care and civic engagement, as well as within broader productivist discourses and the downloading of responsibilities to the individual and community level consistent with neoliberal rationality and gendered assumptions. Study participants were thus not only negotiating more general expectations for productivity at the societal level, but also expectations particular to their neighbourhood.
Accordingly, our findings suggest that social inclusion is often predicated, in part, on the specific types of work that older adults carry out. For example, as the only form of unpaid labour explicitly named by participants as work, informal volunteering was framed as a form of productive and valued time use given its close approximation to paid employment (e.g. adhering to routinised work schedules, working under the direction of a supervisor). By contrast, the assumption that engaging in forms of doing commonly understood to be unproductive was to engage in non-valued time use was also evident. Consistent with the concepts of the value imperialism of work (Beck, Reference Beck2000) and the busy ethic (Ekerdt, Reference Ekerdt1986), our findings highlight the ways in which ‘keeping busy’ through engagement in ‘productive’ forms of time use may serve as a form of moral regulation. That is, the ‘failure’ to engage in paid work in older adulthood may be made legitimate by an ethic that esteems forms of doing that are active and occupied (Ekerdt, Reference Ekerdt1986), as well as through the successful resistance of the desire to engage in forms of doing not associated with norms of efficiency (Beck, Reference Beck2000; Biggs et al., Reference Biggs, McGann, Bowman and Kimberley2017). Older adults may be viewed by others, and also view other older adults, as successfully adhering to understandings of citizenship predicated on expectations of formal economic participation as long as they actively engage in efforts that are seen to contribute to society – and indeed, their neighbourhoods – in some way.
Through highlighting the ways in which many forms of participants' work were rarely named as work and were thus constructed as less valuable or requiring less effort than paid work, our findings add to the conversation about how forms of labour that exceed dominant constructions of work are rendered largely invisible (see Strauss, Reference Strauss1985; Holstein, Reference Holstein1993, Reference Holstein, Minkler and Estes1998, Reference Holstein2015; Kittay, Reference Kittay1999; Star and Strauss, Reference Star and Strauss1999; DeVault, Reference DeVault2014; Rubinstein and de Medeiros, Reference Rubinstein and de Medeiros2015). Indeed, participants discussed the ways in which their contributions to the neighbourhood were taken for granted and understood simply as what older adults ‘should do’, e.g. despite their great efforts, participants described feeling undervalued and overextended in their formal volunteering, informal caring and civic participation work. The concept of invisible work has been applied within critical feminist scholarship to theorise the continued marginalisation of minority group members (e.g. women, older adults, people of colour and/or migrants). Kittay (Reference Kittay1999) argues that it is frequently minority group members who bear the burden of responsibility for a variety of forms of invisible work, and whose labour goes unrecognised when it falls outside the bounds of dominant understandings of productivity. Those forms of labour performed by participants that exceed dominant notions of work – namely informal caring and informal civic participation – were commonly positioned as ‘women's work’. Participants suggested that it was older adult women who were frequently expected to engage in such forms of invisible labour to adhere to norms of conduct related to caring for residents of the neighbourhood, as well as for the neighbourhood itself. It was often those female participants who reported having lower income, living in an apartment building and being unpartnered who also described performing the most intensive forms of this invisible work. Not only do these findings reflect the burden of care, typically performed through invisible work, placed on women throughout their lives, but they also highlight the interconnections between gender, ageing and poverty, with socio-economic status rooted in a division of labour that assumes women's primary involvement in society is related to care work (see Littek, Reference Littek and Wright2015). Although often a significant part of women's lived experiences, invisible work carried out in the service of others or the community is frequently unremunerated, uninstitutionalised and ignored as a valuable form of contribution (Ferrant et al., Reference Ferrant, Pesando and Nowacka2014). The cumulative effects of these gendered expectations related to invisible work and the resulting disparities in income, recognition and effort may render women, particularly women of colour and poor and migrant women, more vulnerable to marginalisation in older adulthood (Calasanti, Reference Calasanti2010).
Across forms of unpaid, often invisible work carried out by participants at the neighbourhood level, issues of feeling overworked and undervalued were discussed. In particular, formal volunteer work was discussed as a form of unrecognised labour at times, despite being explicitly framed by some participants as visible work. Even through their performance of this more socially recognised form of work, participants described being subject to incredible expectations in their roles as volunteers, seen as responsible for contributing to the neighbourhood with little acknowledgement of the significance of their contributions or access to necessary resources and supports for ageing individuals engaged in such work. These findings are suggestive of norms of conduct rooted, in part, in a neoliberal political rationality in which individual responsibility and economic austerity are emphasised (Rose, Reference Rose2006; Asquith, Reference Asquith2009). That is, these findings speak to the downloading of responsibility for the maintenance of the neighbourhood's health and wellbeing on to ageing individuals based on the assumption of their non-productive status through expectations of engagement in volunteer work, thereby shifting focus away from the responsibilities of the state. Critical gerontologists have cautioned against the unproblematised framing of volunteering as an important form of social contributions of older adults for this very reason (e.g. Martinson and Minkler, Reference Martinson and Minkler2006; Stephens et al., Reference Stephens, Breheny and Mansvelt2015). Martinson and Minkler (Reference Martinson and Minkler2006) assert that such framing of volunteer work may operate to re/produce demands placed on older adults to contribute to the market economy, with the impetus towards volunteering coinciding with degradation of social services.
Invisible work, critical to the functioning of societies yet devalued and obscured – including informal caring and civic participation, and, in some instances, volunteering – has been critiqued by critical feminist and critical disability scholars as contributing to the maintenance of an ableist society (Kittay, Reference Kittay1999). When older adults' work is obscured from public view, notions of the primacy of independence are reinforced (i.e. without being able to ‘see’ the work done by older adults, one may incorrectly assume that individuals and communities function without the efforts of others). Older adults may engage in these alternative forms of work as a means of meeting expectations to be a productive member of society, only to have such work rendered invisible, while at the same time negotiating an expectation of independence and the privileging of able bodies capable of carrying out labour at heightened levels and without assistance (Kittay, Reference Kittay1999).
Our findings provide support for these critiques by highlighting the ways in which dominant notions of productivity take as their starting point ‘a hypothetical being – usually male, unencumbered, physically and cognitively intact’ (Shakespeare, Reference Shakespeare2006: 135), which bears little resemblance to the realities of life for many older adults. Specifically, participants spoke about the ways in which expectations of productivity did not always align with or adequately acknowledge their ageing bodies. In light of their ageing bodies, participants discussed the ways in which they were required to negotiate these expectations, encountering challenges related to meeting the considerable demands exacted by some volunteer roles; upholding a culture of care and civic engagement, largely in the absence of contributions from younger generations of residents; and meeting norms of self-presentation as productive citizens who perform ‘good work’. Ultimately, participants' accounts suggested that responsibility for the failure to negotiate successfully expectations of productivity lay with individuals and their ageing bodies themselves, rather than with the organisations for which participants were working or with the often unrealistic norms of conduct embedded within the neighbourhood's cultural context and the broader society. In this way, participants' narratives illuminated the ableist, youth-centric and masculinist expectations for productivity rooted in positive ageing discourses that are often divergent from the realities of older adults' everyday lives.
The ‘successful’ negotiation of expectations of productivity can also be seen as a form of work in itself. The negotiation of these challenges may be framed as engagement in emotion work (see Hochschild, Reference Hochschild1983). Indeed, the concept of emotion work has been used to explain older adults' efforts to negotiate expectations and norms of conduct, including within the context of paid employment (e.g. Dahling and Perez, Reference Dahling and Perez2010; Rudolph and McGonagle, Reference Rudolph and McGonagle2019). Based on our findings, we propose that the concept of emotion work may also be invoked to theorise older adults' efforts to negotiate expectations of productivity embedded within their neighbourhood contexts and broader production-oriented discourses, including those related to managing differing generational understandings of what is ‘good’ for the neighbourhood and how ‘good citizens’ should behave.
Taken together, our findings suggest the need to diversify understandings of the forms of labour perceived as aligning with productive contributions to society in older age, to render visible the invisible work performed by older adults within their neighbourhoods, echoing others' calls to recognise the work performed by older adults (e.g. Martinez et al., Reference Martinez, Crooks, Kim and Tanner2011; Stephens et al., Reference Stephens, Breheny and Mansvelt2015; Breheny and Stephens, Reference Breheny and Stephens2017). Indeed, DeVault (Reference DeVault2014: 775) asserts that, ‘bringing invisible work into view may help to advance projects of social justice and inclusion’. At the same time, we acknowledge that calls to increase the visibility of older adults' work may be complicated by the potential to undermine their autonomy, particularly with respect to older adults' strategic use of invisible work in relation to intentional practices of self-presentation (Star and Strauss, Reference Star and Strauss1999; Katzman and Kinsella, Reference Katzman and Kinsella2018). There exists an inherent tension between ‘individuals’ rightful will to normative participation in contemporary societies and scholarly and/or activist calls to resist structural ableism’ (Katzman and Kinsella, Reference Katzman and Kinsella2018: 1453), as well as structural ageism and sexism. While individuals may conceal their labour for a variety of reasons, including as a form of resistance or as a means of self-presentation, it has been argued that such practices may re/produce cycles of marginalisation of older adults (Weidhaas, Reference Weidhaas, Scott, Barker, Kuhn, Keyton, Turner and Lewis2017). As such, we propose that future scholarship in this area is needed to better understand older adults' lived experiences of unpaid labour, as well as the implications of carrying out forms of labour that exceed dominant constructions of work for older adults' everyday lives.
Finally, our findings suggest the need for organisations and neighbourhoods that benefit from the unpaid labour of older adults to reconsider the ways in which the emotion work of negotiating expectations of productivity rooted in ableism and positive ageing discourses may be lessened. If there is indeed an imperative to remain productive into old age, we argue that there exists a similar moral imperative to examine how organisational and neighbourhood practices privilege able bodies capable of performing work without assistance and at heightened rates. Calls to attend to issues of accessibility to support older adults' participation in community life are long-standing: institutions such as the World Health Organization (2007) and local and national governments (e.g. Government of Ontario, 2005, 2015) have recognised the need to ensure participation parity through improvements to accessibility. Our findings point to a variety of negative aspects of unpaid work as experienced by older adult participants, stemming from norms of conduct at the organisation and neighbourhood levels that ignore the realities of ageing bodies, as well as the precarity produced through intersections with gender and class. To counter these negative experiences, organisations and neighbourhoods may wish to consider making changes to physical spaces and the social and/or practical demands of work. For example, within formal volunteering contexts, we suggest: (a) supporting older adults to flex or reduce the total number of hours worked per week, as well as the times of day/shifts worked; (b) allowing adjustments to the pace of work to suit the needs of the individual; (c) providing physical resources (e.g. ergonomic seating, adequate lighting, assistive technologies) to meet the bodily needs of older adults who are performing labour; and (d) reimbursing some costs incurred through the act of volunteering (e.g. cab fare, mileage). At the neighbourhood level, older adults' efforts may be better supported by ensuring: (a) ready access to affordable public transit to support work-related travel throughout one's neighbourhood; (b) clean, safe outdoor spaces (e.g. walkways) and buildings to promote movement throughout one's neighbourhood; and (c) access to training that enables skill development. Of course, this list of accessibility standards as suggested for adoption by organisations and neighbourhoods is not exhaustive. Instead, we offer this list as a starting point: we encourage organisations and neighbourhoods who benefit from older adults' unpaid labour to consider the ways in which they may contribute in a positive way to reshaping expectations about how productivity in older age ‘should’ look. Further, we suggest that future research efforts focus on developing a more nuanced understanding of the specific accessibility standards that may be taken up by organisations and neighbourhoods in support of older adults and in challenge to current expectations for productivity in older age.
Author contributions
KES led data analysis and drafted the manuscript. CH conceived of the study and contributed to study design, data analysis and drafting of the manuscript. DLR and CM contributed to study design and data analysis, and commented on the manuscript. JM led data generation, contributed to data analysis and commented on the manuscript. JG contributed to study design and commented on the manuscript. WK contributed to study design and commented on the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript prior to submission.
Financial support
This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (grant number 435-2018-1440).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Ethical standards
Ethical approval was granted by the Western University Non-Medical Research Ethics Board in October 2018.
