An Integrative Conceptual Framework of Engagement in Socially-Productive Activity in Later Life: Implications for Clinical and Mezzo Social Work Practice

As the global population ages, expectations around socially-productive engagement in work, volunteer, and caregiving activities in later life are rapidly changing. Several streams of research to date inform our understanding of meaningful engagement in later life, but these bodies of research tend to be siloed in their approaches with few integrative frameworks. Further, advancing the national conversation around the AASWSW’s grand challenge to “Advance Long and Productive Lives” will require that social workers and other professionals have an understanding of what productive aging is at every level of social work practice, from micro to macro, and how these levels interact so that they have the tools they need to carry out the vision of this grand challenge. The goals of this paper are: (a) to further define the conceptual space of engagement, (b) to introduce subjective quality of engagement (SQE) as an important concept in the aging literature and present a conceptual model for it; (c) to integrate SQE into a broader conceptual model of engagement; and (d) to describe implications for clinical and mezzo social work practice. This more integrative approach focuses attention on the ways in which social work practitioners at the clinical and mezzo levels can best support older adult’s continued engagement in socially-productive activities that support health and well-being. We also propose that it will contribute to the discovery of more effective and targeted individual and public health interventions that facilitate the successful/healthy aging of individuals and our society.