Einleitung: Zwanzig Jahre Deutscher Freiwilligensurvey

Retirement and Volunteering in Germany – Historical Changes and Social Inequalities

“…For the Netherlands, van Ingen and Dekker (Van Ingen & Dekker, 2011) showed that retirement became a stronger predictor of volunteering between 1975 and 2005. In Germany, results from the German Survey on Volunteering (Simonson et al, 2022a) showed that, although individuals aged 65 and above still constitute the age group with lowest rates of volunteering, they showed the strongest historical improvements. Nevertheless, it is not clear if there is a specific increase among retired persons compared to those at the end of their working life, in line with a proposed changing face of retirement.…”

“…Our analyses were based on the five cross-sectional waves of the German Survey on Volunteering (Simonson, Kelle et al, 2022a). The German Survey on Volunteering is aimed at illustrating the voluntary activities in Germany and was conducted in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. For the first three waves (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009), the survey was conducted by TNS Infratest Sozialforschung (Infratest).…”

“…Furthermore, given well-known social inequalities in access to and structure of volunteering (Simonson et al, 2022b), it is important to see if the gap between lower and higher educated older adults may be widening with historical time (Infurna et al, 2021). In the current study, we use five cross-sectional waves of the German Survey on Volunteering (Simonson et al, 2022a) to study how the association of retirement and volunteering has changed with historical time. We further investigate educational differences in these developments.…”

Gender Segregation in Civic Life: Women’s and Men’s Involvement in Voluntary Associations

“…Traditionally, men participated more often in voluntary associations than women, and this gap used to be larger in Germany than in other European countries (Norris and Inglehart 2006; Peter and Drobnič 2013). Until recently, however, this gap closed almost entirely in Germany (Jacobsen et al 2022; Simonson et al 2022). Nonetheless, gender segregation across different types of organizations persists in Germany, as in most other countries.…”

“…Nonetheless, gender segregation across different types of organizations persists in Germany, as in most other countries. Although some areas of involvement are characterized by an equal representation of women and men (e.g., culture and music), many of the most popular areas are either men-dominated, such as sports, or women-dominated, such as religion, social issues, education (Norris and Inglehart 2006; Simonson et al 2022). In short, we study the origins of gender segregation in civic life in a context characterized by high structural importance of voluntary associations and gendered patterns of voluntary involvement common in most countries.…”