From motivation to persistence: How role identity sustains long-term elder care volunteering

In the context of global aging, sustaining elder care volunteering is critical for addressing elder care workforce shortages and ensuring long-term social impact. While role identity and empathy ability are theorized as psychological bridges linking motivation to behavioral persistence, their distinct mediating pathways in high-demand care contexts remain underexplored. This study aims to clarify the specific mediation mechanisms of role identity and empathy ability in connecting volunteer motivation to sustained participation among Chinese college students. A multidimensional approach was used to examine the relationships among volunteer motivation, role identity, empathy ability and behavior persistence in a sample of college students. The hypotheses were tested using a bootstrap-based mediation analysis to estimate the direct and indirect effects. Role identity demonstrated robust mediation between motivation and persistence, whereas empathy ability showed no significant mediating effect, contributing mainly to short-term emotional engagement. Role identity drives sustained participation, whereas empathy ability supports initial engagement. These findings clarify volunteerism dynamics and inform elder care – specific retention strategies through targeted identity reinforcement coupled with personalized motivation.