This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in European Sociological Review following peer review. The version of record Qvist, H.-P. Y. and Munk, M. D. (2018). The Individual Economic Returns to Volunteering in Work Life. European Sociological Review, 34(2), 198-210

In this chapter, we examine participation rate and time use trends in volunteering in Scandinavia during the period from the beginning of the 1990s until the mid-2010s. The aim of the analysis is twofold. First, we aim to provide a descriptive analysis of the trends in volunteering in Scandinavia during the period under investigation. Second, we aim to determine whether and to what extent the sociodemographic and institutional changes in the Scandinavian societies during this period can explain the observed trends in volunteering. The results show that the overall levels of participation in volunteering are high and stable in the Scandinavian countries, with a small upward trend. The participation levels are all high in international comparisons, but they are markedly higher in Norway and Sweden than in Denmark. Volunteers' contributions of time appear relatively stable in Norway, but Denmark has witnessed a slight decline and Sweden has witnessed a slight increase. The explanatory analysis revealed that nearly half of the upward trend in the levels of volunteering can be attributed to the expansion of education in the Scandinavian countries. The explanatory analysis also indicated that the gap in the levels of volunteering between Sweden and Norway on the one hand, and Denmark on the other hand, cannot be attributed to socio-demographic differences between the countries, as the gap is left unchanged when controlling for socio-demographic factors.

In the last decades, Western societies have witnessed large scale migration from the Global South. This large-scale migration has brought about important challenges in securing the social, civic, and political integration of non-Western immigrants into Western societies. The previous research suggests that participation in volunteering within civil society can serve as a 'stepping stone' towards integration for immigrants. However, the previous research has shown marked gaps in the propensity to participate in volunteering between immigrants and natives, but little work has been done to identify the mechanisms that explain these gaps. In this study, I use high-quality survey data that are linked with data from administrative registers, to which I apply logistic regression based on the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) method to conduct mediation analysis. The mediation analysis shows that non-Western immigrants are significantly less likely to participate in secular volunteering compared to natives; however, over half of this gap is explained by an indirect effect via socioeconomic status, self-rated health, generalized trust, informal social networks, and the intergenerational transmission of volunteering. Moreover, the mediation analysis suggests that non-Western immigrants are more likely to participate in religious volunteering; however, this gap is completely explained by a strong indirect effect via religiosity.

The nature of the relationship between the time people spend on paid work and volunteering remains debated in the social sciences. Time constraint theory suggests a negative relationship because people can allocate only as much time to volunteering as their work responsibilities permit. However, social integration theory suggests a more complex inverse U-shaped relationship because paid work not only limits people’s free time but also plays a key role in their social integration. Departing from these competing theories, this study uses two-wave panel data from Denmark to examine the relationship between hours of paid work and volunteering. In support of time constraint theory, the results suggest that hours of paid work have a significant negative effect on the total number of hours that people spend volunteering, not mainly because paid work hours affect people’s propensity to volunteer but because they affect the number of hours that volunteers contribute.

Ifølge ressourceteorien om frivilligt arbejde er personer med mange personlige, sociale og kulturelle ressourcer mere tilbøjelige til at deltage i frivilligt arbejde og bruger mere tid på det. I denne artikel viser jeg imidlertid ved hjælp af en to-dele-model, som mindre hyppigt anvendes i den sociologiske frivillighedsforskning sammenlignet med Tobit-modellen, at to af de mest centrale ressource-indikatorer, uddannelse og hyppig kontakt med medlem-mer af ens sociale netværk, har positive effekter på sandsynligheden for deltagelse, men ikke påvirker tidsforbruget givet at man deltager. Eftersom analysen viser, at to-dele-modellen, som adskiller deltagelses-beslutningen og tidsbeslutningen, stemmer bedre overens med data sammenlignet med Tobit-modellen, som antager én simultan beslutning, er der formodentlig snarere tale om to beslutninger, som skyldes forskellige faktorer. Resultaterne af analysen indikerer, at deltagelsesbeslut-ningen afhænger af hvor mange ressourcer individet har, mens tidsbeslutningen snarere afhænger af hvor meget tid personen har til rådighed, når der tages hensyn til arbejds- og familieliv. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Hans-Peter Y. Qvist: Participation in Volunteering and Time Use for Volunteering: Two Sides of the Same Coin? According to the resource theory of volunteering, people with many personal, social, and cultural resources are more likely to participate in volunteering and spend more time on it than people with fewer resources. In this article, however, I show that two of the most central resource indicators education and frequent contact with members of one’s social network, have positive effects on the probability of participation, but do not affect time use given participation. I do this by using a two-part model, rather than Tobit-models, which are the most often used in sociological research on volunteering. The two-part model, which separates the decision to participate from the decision about how much time to spend, fits the data better than the Tobit-model, which assumes one simultaneous decision. This is probably because different factors explain the two decisions. The results of the analysis indicate that the decision to participate is dependent on the amount of resources the individual possesses, while the time decision is dependent on how much time is available to the individual when considering work and family life. Keywords: volunteering, time use, Tobit-model, two-part model, selection model.