Objectives: This study investigates the effects of charitable giving on the life satisfaction of older Korean adults, examining the moderating role of relationship satisfaction and social trust, as the indicators for social capital. Methods: Nationally representative sample of individuals aged 65 to100 (N = 8,359) from the 2019 Social Survey was used for the analyses. Results: The results from Coarsened Exact Matching and Structural Equation Modeling show that charitable giving positively affects older Korean adults’ life satisfaction. Moreover, the results of moderation analyses suggest that the effects of charitable giving on life satisfaction are stronger for those with lower levels of relationship satisfaction and social trust. Discussion: The results imply that social capital, such as relationship satisfaction or social trust, needs to be taken into consideration when exploring the effects of charitable giving in later life.
AdloffF. (2007). What makes for charitable giving and philanthropy? The case of the childless elderly in Germany and the US. European University Institute.
2.
AkninL. B.DunnE. W.SandstromG. M.NortonM. I. (2013a). Does social connection turn good deeds into good feelings?: On the value of putting the ‘social’ in prosocial spending. International Journal of Happiness and Development, 1(2), 155–171. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJHD.2013.055643.
3.
AkninL. B.DunnE. W.WhillansA. V.GrantA. M.NortonM. I. (2013b). Making a difference matters: Impact unlocks the emotional benefits of prosocial spending. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 88, 90–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2013.01.008.
4.
AndreoniJ. (1990). Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory of warm-glow giving. The Economic Journal, 100(401), 464–477. https://doi.org/10.2307/2234133
5.
BaileyP. E.BradyB.EbnerN. C.RuffmanT (2020). Effects of age on emotion regulation, emotional empathy, and prosocial behavior. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 75(4), 802–810. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby084
6.
BatsonC. D. (1998). Altruism and prosocial behavior. In GilbertD. T.FiskeS. T.LindzeyG. (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed, Vol. 2, pp. 282–316). McGraw-Hill
7.
BinderM.FreytagA. (2013). Volunteering, subjective well-being and public policy. Journal of Economic Psychology, 34, 97–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2012.11.008.
BrandtstädterJ.RothermundK.KranzD.KühnW. (2010). Final decentrations: Personal goals, rationality perspectives, and the awareness of life’s finitude. European Psychologist, 15(2), 152–163. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000019
10.
CavanaughL. A.BettmanJ. R.LuceM. F. (2015). Feeling love and doing more for distant others: Specific positive emotions differentially affect prosocial consumption. Journal of Marketing Research, 52(5), 657–673. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.10.0219
11.
ChenY. C.WangY.CooperB.McBrideT.ChenH.WangD., et al. (2018). A research note on challenges of cross-national aging research: An example of productive activities across three countries. Research on Aging, 40(1), 54–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027516678997
12.
ChoS.OhH. K. (2013). How charitable giving is affected by donors’ characteristics particularly in Korean baby boom generation. Korean Association of Nonprofit Organization Research, 12(1), 33–62
13.
CoffmanD. L. (2011). Estimating causal effects in mediation analysis using propensity scores. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 18(3), 357–369. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2011.582001
14.
ColemanJ. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 95–120. https://doi.org/10.1086/228943.
15.
DunnE. W.AkninL. B.NortonM. I. (2014). Prosocial spending and happiness: Using money to benefit others pays off. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(1), 41–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413512503
16.
ElgarF. J.DavisC. G.WohlM. J.TritesS. J.ZelenskiJ. M.MartinM. S. (2011). Social capital, health and life satisfaction in 50 countries. Health & Place, 17(5), 1044–1053. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2011.06.010
17.
GowA. J.PattieA.WhitemanM. C.WhalleyL. J.DearyI. J. (2007). Social support and successful aging: Investigating the relationships between lifetime cognitive change and life satisfaction. Journal of Individual Differences, 28(3), 103–115. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001.28.3.103
18.
GreenfieldE. A.MarksN. F. (2004). Formal volunteering as a protective factor for older adults’ psychological well-being. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 59(5), 258–264. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/59.5.S258
19.
HanS. (2011). A study on the effects of non-financial incentives: Motivating consumers with an opportunity for charitable giving. Journal of Consumer Studies, 22(2), 139–152.
20.
HelliwellJ. F.AkninL. B.ShiplettH.HuangH.WangS. (2018). Social capital and prosocial behavior as sources of well-being. In DienerE.OishiS.TayL. (Eds.), Handbook of well-being. DEF Publishers. https://doi.org/10.3386/w23761
21.
HillJ. (2004). Reducing bias in treatment effect estimation in observational studies suffering from missing data. Columbia University Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) working paper, 4(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.7916/D8B85G11.
22.
HillG.HowellR. T. (2014). Moderators and mediators of pro-social spending and well-being: The influence of values and psychological need satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 69, 69–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.05.013.
23.
HoD. E.ImaiK.KingG.StuartE. A. (2007). Matching as nonparametric preprocessing for reducing model dependence in parametric causal inference. Political Analysis, 15(3), 199–236. http://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpl013
24.
HuangY. (2016). Downward social comparison increases life-satisfaction in the giving and volunteering context. Social Indicators Research, 125(2), 665–676. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0849-6
25.
HuiB. P.KoganA. (2018). Daily ups and downs: An event-sampling study of the mediated moderation of prosocial engagement on well-being. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(6), 675–688. http://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617722197
26.
IacusS. M.KingG.PorroG. (2012). Causal inference without balance checking: Coarsened exact matching. Political Analysis, 20(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr013
27.
JangY. J. (2016). A comparative study of productive activities between middle-aged and elderly women. Korean Journal of Family Welfare, 53, 7–44. http://doi.org/10.16975/kjfsw.2016..53.001.
28.
JunG. J. (2013). Factors influencing individual giving in Korea. Korean Journal of Business Administration, 26(2), 197–218
29.
KahanaE.BhattaT.LovegreenL. D.KahanaB.MidlarskyE. (2013). Altruism, helping, and volunteering: Pathways to well-being in late life. Journal of Aging and Health, 25(1), 159–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264312469665
30.
KangC.KimS.LeeJ. (2017). A study on elderly people’s philanthropic behavior: Comparison of young-old and old-old elderly people. Korean Journal of Gerontological Social Welfare, 72(3), 429–456.
31.
KangJ. D.SchaferJ. L. (2007). Demystifying double robustness: A comparison of alternative strategies for estimating a population mean from incomplete data. Statistical Science, 22(4), 523–539. https://doi.org/10.1214/07-STS227
32.
KimC. W.KimJ. M.KimS. R. M. (2015). A study on the baby boomers’ giving behavior: Comparison of younger & older generations. Korean Journal of Social Welfare Research, 44, 271–305. https://doi.org/10.17997/SWRY.44.1.11.
33.
KwokY. Y.ChuiW. H.WongL. P. (2013). Need satisfaction mechanism linking volunteer motivation and life satisfaction: A mediation study of volunteers subjective well-being. Social Indicators Research, 114(3), 1315–1329. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0204-8.
34.
LeeH. K. (2012). Life environments and volunteering among older adults: Focused on money volunteering. Social Welfare Policy, 39(4), 305–329. https://doi.org/10.15855/swp.2012.39.4.305
35.
LeeJ. Y. (2013). Study of charitable bequest intention of the elderly. Korean Journal of Social Welfare Research, 34, 215–242.
36.
LeeH. (2014). The impact of social activity on life satisfaction and depression of community-dwelling elderly: comparing living arrangement. Journal of Community Welfare, 48(1), 269–290. https://doi.org/10.15300/jcw.2014.48.1.269
37.
LeeS. J. (2018). A study of the charitable bequest intention of baby boomers. Korean Journal of Gerontological Social Welfare, 73(1), 543–564. https://doi.org/10.21194/kjgsw.73.1.201803.543
38.
MidlarskyE.KahanaE.BelserA. (2015). Prosocial behavior in late life. In SchroederD. A.GrazianoW. G. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of prosocial behavior (pp. 415–432). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195399813.013.030
ParkT. G. (2003). Giving culture in Korea: present and future. In Giving culture in Korea: Present and future. A keynote speech delivered on the 5th anniversary of the foundation of Community Chest of Korea held in the Korea Press Center, November 4, 5–12.
RohB. R. (2020). Does donation make us happy? Applying longitudinal path model to cross-lagged panel model. Health and Social Welfare Review, 40(1), 178–205. https://dx.doi.org/10.15709/hswr.2020.40.1.178
ŞimşekÖ. F. (2009). Happiness revisited: Ontological well-being as a theory-based construct of subjective well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10(5), 505–522. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-008-9105-6.
45.
SongJ.GuC.ZuoB. (2019). Effect of charitable behavior on life satisfaction: A parallel multivariable mediation model. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 47(3), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.7701.
SuhE.DienerE.OishiS.TriandisH. C. (1998). The shifting basis of life satisfaction judgments across cultures: Emotions versus norms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(2), 482–493. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.2.482
49.
WebbD.WongJ. (2014). Exploring antecedents of charitable giving and their impact on subjective well-being in Singapore. Social Indicators Research, 117(1), 65–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0331-x
50.
YoonS.HanK. (2004). Productive activities and psychological well-being of the rural elderly in Korea. Journal of the Korea Gerontological Society, 24(2), 57–77.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
