Drawing on public opinion and empirical research, one may advise people to participate in voluntary organizations because voluntary participation can improve their mental health and social well-being. However, do such benefits apply across different types of participation and across the life course? In this study, we investigated whether benefits to mental health and social well-being differ between nonpolitical and political participation and across age groups (preregistration is accessible at https://osf.io/kqcbe). Using 25 waves of data from the British Household Panel Survey and the Understanding Society (1991–2016), we conducted multilevel analyses with observations nested within participants in younger (14–29, n = 10,536), middle-aged (40–50, n = 4,955), and older (65–75, n = 3,059) adults. We used life satisfaction and GHQ-12 scores as measures of mental health, and social support and neighborhood belonging as measures of social well-being. We found only few and small significant effects at the within-person level: On occasions when younger adults reported political participation, they reported slightly higher neighborhood belonging than when they did not. On occasions when older adults reported nonpolitical or political participation, they reported slightly higher life satisfaction than when they did not. However, we found no significant differences between nonpolitical and political participation and among age groups. In sum, our findings qualify the opinion that voluntary participation yields significant benefits to engaged individuals. We discuss potential explanations, including characteristics of political participation in the United Kingdom.

借助舆论和实证研究，可以建议人们参加志愿组织，因为志愿参与可以改善他们的心理健康和社会福祉。然而，这些好处是否适用于不同类型的参与和整个生命历程？在这项研究中，我们调查了非政治和政治参与以及不同年龄组对心理健康和社会福祉的益处是否不同（预注册可在 https://osf.io/kqcbe 上访问）。使用来自英国家庭小组调查和理解协会（1991-2016）的 25 波数据，我们进行了多层次分析，观察嵌套在年轻（14-29，n  = 10,536）、中年（40-50，n  = 4,955) 和更老的 (65–75,n = 3,059) 成人。我们使用生活满意度和 GHQ-12 分数作为心理健康的衡量标准，使用社会支持和邻里归属感作为社会福利的衡量标准。我们发现在个人层面上只有很少和很小的显着影响：有时，当年轻人报告政治参与时，他们报告的社区归属感比不参与时略高。有时，当老年人报告非政治或政治参与时，他们报告的生活满意度比没有时略高。然而，我们发现非政治和政治参与之间以及年龄组之间没有显着差异。总而言之，我们的研究结果证明了自愿参与可为参与的个人带来显着收益的观点。我们讨论可能的解释，