Background and objectives: This study analyzes critically existing knowledge concerning older people’s civic participation, pinpoints gaps in the literature, and proposes new directions for research. Research design and methods: We conducted a scoping review of literature on older people’s civic participation. To conduct this review, we followed the 5-step framework developed by Arksey and O’Malley (Arksey H, O’Malley L. Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. Int J Soc Res Method. 2005; 8: 19–32), and expanded by Levac and colleagues (Levac D, Colquhoun H, O’Brien KK. Scoping studies: Advancing the methodology. Implement Sci. 2010; 5: 69). Results: Research into older people’s civic participation has grown steadily over the past 55 years. However, the increasing number of publications mainly concerns collective forms of social participation, particularly volunteering, with other types of participation being more stable over time. Contextual as well as dynamic aspects of civic participation remain underdeveloped. Diversity of older people is scarcely represented in current research. Discussion and implications: This scoping review identifies 4 critical gaps in the literature that should be at the forefront of future research. These are classified as conceptual, contextual, processual, and diverse aspects of research into older people’s civic participation.

This scoping review analyses existing literature on older adults’ participation in artistic activities. It identifies gaps in this research topic and suggests new directions for research. We followed the five-step process defined by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and extended by Levac et al. (2010). Four electronic databases were searched, and 129 peer-reviewed articles were included in the scoping review. Research into older adults’ participation in artistic activities has grown in the last ten years. However, empirical papers tend to focus on the outcomes of older people’s participation in artistic activities, in particular the benefits. Most papers centred on facilitators to examine the antecedents of this type of participation among people in late life. Research about experiences, potentially negative consequences or barriers to older adults’ participation in artistic activities have been largely overlooked. We identified several gaps in the literature, which we classified as: related to the artistic activities that were considered; the potential costs and barriers for older adults’ participation in artistic activities; older adults’ voices and their diversity; the life course perspective; and a contextual view of research on the topic. These gaps suggest challenges that future research on older adults’ participation in artistic activities should consider.

Research on later-life generativity has promoted a new view of older persons that, far from the traditional images of disability, dependence and frailty, recognises their capacities, and potential to continue growing, while underlining their participation and contributions to families, communities and society. The goal of this study was to carry out a scoping review on later-life generativity, the first one conducted on this topic as far as we know, to show how studies in this area have evolved, which aspects of generativity in later life have been studied, and the methodological and epistemological approaches that are dominant in this area of inquiry. Our scoping review shows that research into generativity in later life has grown steadily over the past 30 years, and particularly during the last decade. However, our results also show how such growing interest has focused on certain methodological approaches, epistemological frameworks and cultural contexts. We identify four critical gaps and leading-edge research questions that should be at the forefront of future research into generativity in later life, gaps that reflect biases in the existing literature identified in the study. These are classified as methodological, developmental, contextual and ‘dark-side’ gaps.

Aging population has increased a global concern to keep seniors active and healthy. Civic participation, in particular, has been highlighted for its social and community benefits and its impact on elders’ health and well-being. To date, however, most studies have explored volunteering; other types of civic activities, such as political participation, are largely overlooked. This study analyzes the relationship between older people’s active involvement in political organizations, generativity, and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. We selected two samples of Spanish older people: a sample of elders actively involved in political organizations (n = 97) and a comparison group (n = 85). Measures of generative concern, hedonic well-being, and eudaimonic well-being were applied. Results showed that politically active elders obtained higher scores on generative concern than comparison group individuals. Furthermore, generative concern predicted higher scores on both eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. However, active involvement in political organizations was not related to higher levels of well-being in the multivariate analyses. Translating generative concerns into effective behaviors, for instance political activities, may imply sacrifices and efforts, such that higher levels of well-being do not necessarily result from these activities. Thus, results from this study call into question the positive effect of civic participation on elders’ well-being, showing that this may not be necessarily the case for those who are actively involved in political organizations. Future research may build on these results to compare the differential effect of different kinds of generative activities on older people’s well-being.

Research on older people’s civic engagement has increased significantly in the last two decades, as have policy and practice initiatives aimed at promoting civic engagement among older adults. However, the growing interest of researchers and policy-makers in older people’s civic engagement has not been mirrored by a parallel effort to define what civic engagement means in later life. To contribute to ongoing debates regarding the definition of civic engagement, this paper aims to examine the extent to which the concept has been defined in the ageing literature (RQ1), the ways in which it has been defined (RQ2), and the activities that have typically been associated with the concept (RQ3). We conducted a scoping review and content analysis of gerontological definitions of the concept of civic engagement and related concepts, such as volunteering and political participation. Our study reveals the diversity of ways in which older people are engaged, with some forms of activity, such as volunteering, more commonly featuring than others, such as informally helping others. A typology of civic activities among older people arose from the analysis of definitions, which permits their hierarchical differentiation and ordering, and thus contributes to a more nuanced and complex understanding of what we mean by being civically engaged in later life.