In view of the demographic, economic and social changes brought about by population aging, the notion of active aging implies salutogenic strategies to be implemented throughout the life cycle with the aim of extending a person’s healthy life expectancy and quality of life (World Health Organization, 2002). In Europe, this premise has guided the scientific conceptualization of wellbeing during old age and has channeled the design of concordant public policies (Foster and Walker, 2015).

The wellbeing of older adults goes beyond the claim of reaching old age in good physical condition. Wellbeing encompasses health in a broader sense, including the physical, mental and social dimensions (World Health Organization, 2002). Among the various indicators that denote well-being, a person’s perception of their own quality of life (which translates into subjective wellbeing), self-assessed in both the short term (happiness) and long term (life satisfaction), is rather relevant (Helliwell and Putnam, 2004; VanderWeele et al., 2020). Consequently, in this research, health, happiness, and life satisfaction are understood as indicators of the wellbeing of the older population.

Likewise, the concept of active aging also transcends the need to prolong the involvement of older people in the labor market (Foster and Walker, 2015). A holistic approach encompasses the participation of the person in society, in their families and in their communities, through activities that are in line with their desires, capabilities, needs and opportunities (World Health Organization, 2002; Rantanen et al., 2019). Similarly, Helliwell et al. (2019) assert that a person (especially those over 60 years of age) feels greater satisfaction with life to the extent that they feel involved in their community. Furthermore, participating within the community is associated with greater mental wellbeing (Ding et al., 2015) and with high social trust, belongingness, and community bonding (Veeh et al., 2019). Thus, one might conjecture that civic engagement may also represent an opportunity for active aging. Nonetheless it is not only the older adult who benefits from such participation, but also the society, in terms of gains in experience and generativity, supportive roles for families and communities, and the creation and preservation of social capital (Villar and Serrat, 2014; Villar et al., 2021).

Civic participation refers to activities, political or social, carried out by ordinary citizens that aim to improve society, care for others, or directly or indirectly influence the actions of those in power (Verba et al., 1978; Thomassen, 2003; Ekman and Amnå, 2012). In this work, and in line with the European Social Survey, the following undertakings are considered as participatory activities: signing petitions, wearing campaign badges, contacting politicians, boycotting products, demonstrating publicly, or voluntary participation in political and non-political organizations. Regarding the different ways of civic participation, there is extensive literature that endorses the benefits obtained by older people who get involved in volunteering. Examples include improved life satisfaction, perceived health and life expectancy, in addition to reducing depression (Haski-Leventhal, 2009), preventing cognitive decline (Proulx et al., 2018) and promoting the wellbeing and development of their communities (Gonzales et al., 2015).

Despite the scarce scientific literature showing the benefits of civic participation on the wellbeing of the older population, previous studies have shown that such participation has positive repercussions on their happiness, health and life satisfaction (Vega-Tinoco et al., 2021), in addition to its key role as a means for older people to stay active and socially involved, and to have their opinions taken into account and represented in the political spheres (Serrat et al., 2020). Moreover, the literature is scarce regarding the motivations of older adults to participate in this type of civic activities. Hence, this paper seeks to analyze the fundamental values proposed by Schwartz as possible motivators of such participation.

Schwartz (1992) defines human values as desirable and transcendent goals that serve as principles that guide people’s lives, according to the individual importance assigned to each, and that motivate behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes (Schwartz, 2003; Schwartz and Cieciuch, 2022). The type of motivational goal that a value expresses is its central core, a key aspect that differentiates the fundamental values proposed by the author. Even among different cultures, it can be found that virtually all specific values can fit within the same integrative model. The 10 universal values proposed by Schwartz (1992) are: Benevolence, Universalism, Self-direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement, Power, Security, Conformity, and Tradition. Table 1 shows these core values along with a description of their primary motivational goal.

The Theory of Human Values describes the dynamic relationships that occur between these values, i.e., it posits a structural model. As can be seen in Figure 1, the circular arrangement of the values expresses the motivational continuity of the structure: the greater the similarity of the core motivations of the values, the closer they will be within the circle (in either direction) and can be pursued by the same action. Likewise, the greater the opposition of these motivations, the more distant the values will be and, in general, they cannot be pursued by the same action. Those values located at opposite ends of the circle then contain opposing central motivations (Schwartz, 1992, 2003, 2012; Schwartz and Cieciuch, 2022).

Likewise, such a structure is divided into four higher-order categories. Openness to Change emphasizes autonomy and independence, as well as willingness for new experiences. Conservation refers to the maintenance of the established order, self-control and resistance to change. Self-enhancement comprises the pursuit of prestige, success and self-interest, while Self-transcendence is concerned with the interests and wellbeing of others (Schwartz, 2003; Egri and Ralston, 2004). Figure 1 shows the values that belong to each category, as well as the organization and relationship of the structure.

Additionally, this theory contemplates the principle of the interest that the values serve, since they can be oriented towards a social focus or a personal focus. The values of Universalism, Benevolence, Tradition, Conformity and Security (left side of the figure) regulate the way in which a person relates socially and to the interests of others. Whereas Self-direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement and Power (right part of the figure) regulate the way in which one expresses one’s own interests and personal characteristics. It should be emphasized that Security and Universalism are borderline values between the social and personal approaches, as their orientation is primarily directed towards others, but they also regulate the pursuit of self-interest. The last principle is based on the relationship of values to the anxiety caused by uncertainty in the social and physical world. Self-protection values attempt to cope with this anxiety, while Growth values express anxiety-free motivations (Cieciuch et al., 2015; Schwartz and Cieciuch, 2022).

In his later work, Schwartz (2017) refines the theory and proposes 19 different values, but the author himself acknowledges that his model presents a non-binding character due to the continuous nature of motivations. The author emphasizes that it is advisable to divide the value items into a greater or lesser level of fineness, corresponding to the needs and objectives of every study (Schwartz, 2017). Thus, for the present analysis we consider more convenient the 10-value model so that similarity between a value and its contiguous ones is avoided to a greater extent.

The consideration of values as a structure increases the possibility of predicting and understanding the relationship they have with other variables such as, for example, people’s behavior, opinions, attitudes or social experiences. If a value has a significant impact on a variable, it is very likely that its adjacent and opposite values also have a relevant association with that variable (Schwartz, 2003, 2012).

Schwartz (2010) indicates that there is a positive association between volunteering and pro-social behavior, characterized by the values of Universalism, Benevolence and Conformity. Likewise, there are several studies that find a positive correlation between volunteering, social awareness and other pro-social actions with the values of Self-transcendence (Universalism and Benevolence) and, on the contrary, a negative correlation with Power and Achievement (Pepper et al., 2009; Plagnol and Huppert, 2010; Bathini and Vohra, 2013). Schwartz (2010) also indicates that values denoting individualism (Power and Security) seem to hinder pro-social behavior. However, if a person engages in volunteering activities for the sake of gaining public recognition or social acceptance, Self-enhancement values might not only not hinder volunteering, but promote it (Ariza-Montes et al., 2017). As volunteering is one of several forms of civic participation, it seems reasonable to think that values might have similar correlations with this participation as well.

The study by Funk (1998) posed a similar question: does people’s value orientation help explain their level of civic involvement in their communities? The results revealed that individuals whose values are oriented towards others (Self-transcendence) are more likely to participate civically. Accordingly, people who showed greater individualism reported a lower propensity to engage in such activities. Bekkers (2005) also reports that civically active citizens manifest values with more post-materialistic orientations.

The preliminary results of Hamby and Farrell (2022) also reflect that values related to achievement and growth may reduce the intention to engage in civic activities. Moreover, they indicate that the reasons that lead a person to engage in pro-social experiences are often based on their underlying values, which in turn may influence the person’s response to the participatory experience and their satisfaction with it. The authors also point out that differences in value orientation, as a motivation for engaging in such activities, may explain why this type of activity does not affect everyone equally. However, there is still insufficient scientific literature studying the relationship between human values and civic participation. And, above all, the existing studies show the association between values and participation (correlation), but do not inquire about the direction of this relationship. This is also true for the relationship between values and wellbeing.

In addition to the empirical evidence that supports the link between civic participation and wellbeing, the direct relationship between wellbeing and fundamental values is still pending. In this field, the documentation on the values-wellbeing link is ample, but its directional association has not yet been established.

The scientific literature states that both directions of the wellbeing-values relationship are possible. On the one hand, as proposed by Sortheix and Schwartz (2017) by unifying the theories existing until then, it is possible that pursuing values that have been considered as “healthy” and that also satisfy intrinsic and self-growth and actualization needs (e.g., Openness to Change) lead to higher subjective wellbeing. Accordingly, values that are considered “unhealthy” and that require stressful activities for self-protection (e.g., Conservation) have the opposite effect. The study by Sagiv and Schwartz (2000) found similar associations and further notes that values seem to have a rather weak but direct influence on wellbeing.

On the other hand, it is also possible that the association goes in the other direction, so that the level of subjective wellbeing influences the importance assigned to certain values. It is possible that a person with a high level of wellbeing has the resources to pursue the autonomy and concern for others represented by the values of Self-direction, Benevolence, Stimulation and Universalism. Whereas a person who does not enjoy such wellbeing may be more focused on their own problems as to pursue these types of values, giving more priority to others such as Security and Power (Sagiv and Schwartz, 2000; Schwartz and Sortheix, 2018).

However, although there is a large number of cross-sectional studies on the association between values and subjective wellbeing, there is barely any longitudinal research on their temporal interaction (Grosz et al., 2021). Therefore, this paper also pays special attention to the possible direction of the relationship between values and wellbeing among older people.

Based on the above, the hypotheses of this study are as follows:

The European Social Survey (ESS) is a pan-European research infrastructure that provides freely accessible data for academics, policymakers, civil society, and the wider public. The organizational structure of ESS is characterized by its cross-national nature and the coordination of efforts from academics at various institutions including the University of London (leading role), the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research, the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the University of Essex, and the University of Ljubljana. The ESS is a comprehensive research tool that provides accessible data for academics, policymakers, civil society and the wider public. It is designed to observe shifts in European attitudes and values over time (ESS, 2023).

The ESS adheres to rigorous sampling methods to ensure representative data across all participating nations. A strict no-substitution policy for non-respondents is maintained to preserve data integrity. Each country aims for a minimum effective sample size of 1,500 with response rates targeted at 70%, although there are variations among countries across waves. Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, and Sweden have experienced a decline in response rates, although it is never consistent and never below 60%. On the other hand, France, Spain, and Switzerland have shown a remarkable increase in response rates to 70%. Response rates in Belgium, Poland, and the United Kingdom remain stable at around 70%. In Ireland, The Netherlands, and Portugal, however, response rates can be quite erratic, ranging from 60 to 70%. The ESS is committed to producing reliable and comparable data across Europe, which facilitates in-depth analysis of societal trends. This meticulous approach ensures the accuracy of the data (Beullens et al., 2018).

The cross-sectional data were taken from the 9 waves of the European Social Survey, collected every 2 years from 2002 to 2018 (ESS, 2002–2018). Only persons born before 1965, resident in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were considered.

As the main objective of this study is to find evidence on the direction of the relationships, all variables have been considered as dependent or independent according to need. The three main groups of variables are: basic values, civic participation and wellbeing.

An individual variable was assigned for each of the 10 values (Benevolence, Universalism, Self-direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement, Power, Security, Conformity and Tradition), as well as a variable for each of the 4 dimensions (Conservation, Self-transcendence, Openness to Change and Self-enhancement). The ESS consists of between 2 and 3 indexes for each value, to which the respondent answers on a scale from 1 to 6 if that value is “not at all like me” to “very much like me.” The score for each variable value is equal to the mean of the indexes corresponding to that value. Also, for each dimension we take the mean of the values that conform it.

In addition, the ESS asks whether the person has done any of the following activities in the last 12 months in order to “improve things in [their country] or help prevent things from going wrong”: signing petitions, wearing campaign badges or stickers, contacting politicians or government officials, boycotting products, demonstrating, or working in a political party or other type of organization/association. Civic participation results in a single dichotomous variable, which takes the value of 1 if the person has been involved in any activity, and 0 if not.

Also, health, happiness and life satisfaction are taken as indicators of the wellbeing of older people. The corresponding questions in the ESS are: “Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?” “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays?” and “How is your health in general?” These are answered on a scale from “Extremely unhappy/unsatisfied” (0) to ““Extremely happy/satisfied” (10); as well as from 1 to 5, meaning “Very bad” to “Very good” health (the scale has been inverted to simplify the interpretation of the results, being the original ESS scale from 1 = “Very good” to 5 = “Very bad”). Helliwell and Putnam (2004) confirm that self-reported variables are a valid and reliable measure of subjective wellbeing. In the end, the three variables (health, happiness and life satisfaction) have been reconstructed in a dichotomous way (1 = high wellbeing, 0 = otherwise), considering that a person’s level of wellbeing is high if the interviewee scores 9 or 10 for happiness and satisfaction, and 4 or 5 for health.

In the absence of panel data at the individual level, a pseudo-panel gives the research a longitudinal character and enables the study of the changes over time of the variables of interest (Deaton, 1985). Thus, we have grouped people with the same time-invariant characteristics: gender (male or female), age-group, country and level of studies. We accounted for 6 age-groups: early Silent Generation (born between 1936 and 1940); mid Silent Generation (1941–1945); late Silent Generation (1946–1950); early Baby Boomers (1951–1955); mid Baby Boomers (1956–1960); and late Baby Boomers (1961–1965). Also, level of studies (1 = primary or less, 2 = secondary, 3 = tertiary) is considered time-invariant given the age range of the individuals.

The pseudo-panel design comprises the construction of cohorts that group together individuals who meet the same characteristics, representing a “standardized person.” For example, one cohort could represent a “female, late Silent Generation, tertiary level of education in Sweden.” Thus, each variable will take the mean value of the individual responses of the people who form that cohort, and hence the changes of that “standardized person” can be tracked over time (Deaton, 1985; Guillerm, 2017; Reeskens and Vandecasteele, 2017). After forming cohorts (with no less than 30 individuals per cohort), our final sample consists of 3,926 observations, i.e., 437 cohorts (with x̄=235 individuals per group; σ = 163) across the 9 waves (2002–2018).

In order to infer directional associations with longitudinal data, we used a cross-lagged model (Imai and Kim, 2019; Russell et al., 2019), applying both random-effects (RE) and fixed-effects (FE) models. We ran the FE model suggested by the Hausman test, however, this model can be highly dependent on sample size and therefore we opted to run the RE as well, so as to minimize variance. Although the RE coefficients may be overestimated, they also provide more significant results and the use of both models will also shed more light on their interpretation. The software used was STATA 14 [Stata (RRID:SCR_012763)], commands xtreg, re and xtreg, fe.

Descriptive statistics show that the values to which older adults assign the greatest importance are Benevolence (x̄=4.80/6) and Universalism (x̄=4.71/6), while, on the contrary, the values to which they attribute the least importance are Power (x̄=2.99/6), Stimulation (x̄=3.23/6) and Achievement (x̄=3.39/6). In addition, 60% of older European consider themselves to be in good or very good health, and 28% report being happy and 26% are satisfied with their lives (Table 2).

Also, 52% of the participants reported having carried out some kind of civic activity in the last year. However, the sample can be divided according to the 4 higher-order dimensions of the Schwartz theory, assigning to each person a dimension marked by the values they consider most important. Thus, we see that the older people who participate the most are those who tend towards Self-enhancement and Openness to Change, with 55 and 54% of these people having participated, correspondingly. Likewise, the highest percentage of older adults who express having good health are those who lean towards Self-enhancement, and the most satisfied are those who lean towards Openness to Change. On the other hand, the people who tend towards Conservation report lower health, and Self-transcendence report lower life satisfaction. The proportion of happy individuals does not seem to vary meaningfully by dimension (Table 3).

Furthermore, civic engagement, wellbeing and human values scores vary as people age. 53% of middle-aged persons have been involved in civic participation, but this percentage declines with age, dropping to 41% by the time they reach the fourth-age. Health also deteriorates with age, but the difference in happiness and life satisfaction is not really substantial between the middle- and fourth-age, although a positive peak does occur at the third age. In terms of human values, people seem to give more importance to Conservation values as they age, and less to Self-enhancement and Openness to Change (Table 4).

Regarding the values-participation correlation, Tradition, Conformity, Security, Power and Achievement have a negative correlation with civic participation. In contrast, the relationship is positive with Benevolence, Universalism, Self-direction, Hedonism and Stimulation. Also, the strongest correlations between values correspond to those that are close within the continuous circle proposed by Schwartz, and the opposite values show weaker correlations, confirming the theoretical structure. For example: Self-direction has the strongest correlation with Universalism (0.73), then Benevolence (0.69) and Stimulation (0.67), while it correlates the weakest with Conformity (0.30) and Tradition (0.39). Another example is Power, that strongly correlates with Achievement (0.77), followed by Security (0.53), and weakly correlates with Universalism (0.36), Benevolence (0.37), and Hedonism (0.38) (Table 5). Table 5

Ten basic human values correlations with civic participation.

Finally, the values also correlate directly with the indicators of wellbeing, such that Tradition, Conformity and Security show a negative association with health, while Universalism, Self-direction, Achievement, Hedonism and Stimulation show a positive one. As for happiness and life satisfaction, both are positively correlated with Benevolence and Self-direction, but negatively correlated with Tradition, Security, Power, Achievement and Hedonism. Additionally, life satisfaction positively correlates with Universalism (Table 6). Table 6

Ten basic human values correlations with wellbeing.

The estimations carried out using both the Random Effects Model and the Fixed Effects Model show that there is a bidirectional relationship between values and civic participation, so that both variables have a certain impact on one another. However, the impact that participation has on human values is considerably greater than the impact that values have on participation, in all cases. Although the coefficients of the Random Effects Model are probably magnified as it is not the model suggested by the Hausman test, we get more significant results so that it is possible to observe the direction of the relationship between variables more clearly. Furthermore, we have repeated all the estimates using the Fixed Effects Model suggested by the Hausman test and, with slightly more conservative coefficients, the results are confirmed.

Additionally, when grouping the values in their 4 higher-order dimensions, the same direction of the relationship is observed for Conservation and Self-enhancement, the impact being negative in both cases. Also, civic participation has a positive effect on Openness to Change.

Similar to what is observed in the correlations (Table 5), the values on which civic participation has a positive impact are Benevolence, Universalism, Self-direction, Stimulation, and Hedonism, while its effect is negative on Achievement, Power, Security, Conformity, and Tradition. Additionally, civic participation seems to have a greater impact on Power (−) than on the remaining values (Table 7). Table 7

Cross-lagged model for civic participation and the 10 basic human values.

This section also presents the results of the estimations with both models (Random and Fixed Effects) for each value per wellbeing indicator. In this case, although the coefficients of the Fixed Effects Model are considerably more conservative than those of the Random Effects Model, the directional pattern is also confirmed (Table 8).