Being a pretty good citizen: an analysis and monetary valuation of formal and informal voluntary work by gender and educational attainment¹

Abstract

This paper is set in the context of macrosocial/macroeconomic theories of the organization of both paid and unpaid work. The specific topic investigated is engagement in unpaid voluntary work, an activity which is thought to be important for social cohesion, civil society and citizenship. Research on the sources of social cohesion has focused on organizational membership and voluntary organization activity. There has been little investigation of informal helping of non-resident kin, friends or acquaintances, an activity which is not measured in most social surveys but is measured in time use surveys. Previous research shows that the highly educated are more likely to engage in formal voluntary organizations and data from the UK 2000 HETUS survey confirm that the highly educated spend more time on formally organised voluntary work. However, the less qualified, particularly women, spend more time on extra-household unpaid helping activities. Since both types of voluntary work are partly dependent on available time, these findings are modelled adjusting for time allocated to paid work, study, family and personal care. The findings remain statistically significant. Drawing on work carried out by the Office for National Statistics, a monetary value is placed on both formally organized and informal voluntary work. Although the median wage rates for formal voluntary work are greater than those for informal helping, the latter is greater in frequency and duration and therefore more economically valuable from a population perspective. This finding is discussed in the light of recent debates on citizenship and gender.

Religion, Altruism, and Helping Strangers: A Multilevel Analysis of 126 Countries

“…At the individual level, gender, age, health, income, educational level, marital status, presence of children in the household, and employment status have been found to influence informal volunteering, so we include them as controls. Earlier studies have found that women do more informal volunteering than men (Egerton and Mullan 2008;Gundelach, Frietag, and Stadelmann-Steffen 2010;Hank and Stuck 2008;Hook 2004). Informal volunteering increases with age and then declines late in life as health declines (Gundelach, Frietag, and Stadelmann-Steffen 2010).…”

Middle‐Class Political Activism and Middle‐Class Advantage in Relation to Public Services: A Realist Synthesis of the Evidence Base

“…The UK evidence demonstrates that middle‐class people are more likely to be in groups and engage in formal voluntary activity (Egerton 2002; Li et al . 2003; Egerton and Mullan 2008). Evidence in relation to both the USA and England demonstrates how more geographically mobile middle‐class mothers, in particular, rely on groups such as parents' groups to make friendship networks in new neighbourhoods (McGrath and Kuriloff 1999; Bagnall et al .…”

Hospice volunteers: bridging the gap to the community?

“…creates social groups within society), whereas formal volunteering tends to ‘bridge’ social capital (i.e. creating societal social capital) (Egerton & Mullan ). Volunteers in EOLC services are often seen as having social proximity to the people who use services and thus may be an important factor in creating societal ‘capital’ by embedding services in the community (Hill et al .…”