Session: Expanding Opportunities and Reducing Inequities to Advance Long, Healthy, and Productive Lives in Later Life (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

The Grand Challenge to Advance Long, Healthy, and Productive Lives calls for social work to pursue innovative and equity-centered approaches that dismantle structural barriers and create meaningful roles, choices, and opportunities across the life course. This symposium responds to that call by presenting four papers that center on aging while interrogating the social, institutional, and policy dynamics that shape access to work, caregiving, volunteering, and lifelong learning. These papers uplift the voices of older adults, particularly those at the intersection of marginalized identities, and identify strategies to make later life a time of empowerment and engagement rather than exclusion and precarity.

The first paper offers a scoping review of social work's scholarly and institutional engagement with gerontological education from the 1960s to the present. By charting shifts in curricula, thought leadership, and training priorities, the paper examines how professional education aligns (or fails to align) with the needs of an aging society. The findings highlight gaps in gerontological preparation that threaten the field's ability to support older adults in realizing long and productive lives and underscore the urgency of reinvigorating aging-focused education.

The second paper uses survey data to explore how ageist workplace environments impact older adults' mental health. Drawing attention to how exclusionary practices often constrain retirement timing, this research illustrates how workplace discrimination undermines agency and well-being in later life. The authors advocate for policy and organizational reforms that promote inclusive, age-friendly work environments, critical to extending opportunity and autonomy across the life course.

The third paper analyzes ethnic differences in formal and informal volunteerism among Asian Americans aged 50 to 75, using pooled data from the Current Population Survey. Focusing on six subgroups, the study finds that Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese are significantly more likely to engage in formal volunteering than Chinese, who show the lowest participation. Filipinos and Asian Indians are more likely to engage in informal volunteerism. Education and income only partially account for these disparities, with effects varying by group and type of volunteering. This underscores the need to examine Asian subgroups separately and design culturally responsive strategies to support equitable volunteer engagement in midlife and later life.

The final paper features findings from a nationally representative study focused on identifying typologies of older working caregivers and a case study of a leading workplace-based caregiving support program. The authors identify six distinct caregiving profiles among workers aged 50+ and link these to well-being outcomes, then illustrate how employer-led innovations like paid eldercare leave can meet caregivers' needs. This paper offers actionable insights for social work practice and policy, particularly in recognizing caregiving as a meaningful, often invisible role, central to later-life productivity and well-being.

Our discussant, an expert in productive aging, will comment on how these various studies advance the Grand Challenge by identifying points across social work education, workplace equity, volunteering, and caregiving. By centering older adults' experiences and addressing intersecting forms of marginalization, this symposium offers a vision for institutions and systems that empower all individuals to thrive across the life course.