Generous or Greedy Marriage? A Longitudinal Study of Volunteering and Charitable Giving

Abstract

Recent scholarship has explored whether marriage encourages individuals to contribute to or withdraw from society. The authors examined how marriage affects volunteering and charitable giving, using longitudinal data from the 2001 to 2009 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Newly married men, but not women, were significantly more likely to give money to charity in the first survey wave after marriage and gave larger amounts of money. Newly married women, but not men, were significantly less likely to volunteer after marriage and volunteered fewer hours. Marriage had a stronger effect on religious giving than overall giving among men and had a significant and positive effect on religious giving among women. Marriage had a stronger positive effect on men's giving in the second wave after marriage than after the first.

U.S. Volunteering in the Aftermath of the Great Recession: Were African Americans a Significant Factor?

“…There have been several general studies of volunteerism published since the onset of the Great Recession [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. This research found a wide range of factors other than race correlated with volunteerism.…”

Determinants of participation in voluntary work: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies

“… 50,0 1998 12 7 Volunteering {Yes vs. No} Voluntary work carried out in the past 12 months Formal 2914 w 40,0 u / 41,5 v N.R. Einolf & Philbrick [ 26 ] PSID x USA Individuals never married at baseline N.R. N.R.…”

“…2a ). Six studies [ 11 , 21 , 24 , 26 , 30 , 36 ] (out of eleven) found that older people are less likely to volunteer, no associations in the opposite direction were found. Sources of heterogeneity were explored by conducting meta-regression analyses and subgroup analyses (see Table 3 ).…”

The Socialization of Financial Giving: A Multigenerational Exploration

“…Additionally, they found that the effects of religion on both the decision to give financially and the amount given were moderated by religious affiliation, with religion having the biggest effect for Christians. Other predictors of financial giving include peer support (Prendergast & Maggie, 2013), being married (Einolf & Philbrick, 2014), and similarity and connection between giver and receiver (Prendergast & Maggie, 2013). Although financial ability has been found to predict financial giving (Prendergast & Maggie, 2013), research has not yet established if and how SES might be associated with financial giving.…”