Nations of Joiners: Explaining Voluntary Association Membership in Democratic Societies

Time vs. money — The supply of voluntary labor and charitable donations across Europe

“…Immigrants have a significantly lower probability of working for the charity, which is in accord with the existing literature on social integration, showing that immigrants are at a higher risk of being socially excluded with respect to social and political participation in general (see, e.g., Tsakloglou and Papadopoulos, 2002). Conforming existing research on the relationship between religiosity and volunteering (see, e.g., Curtis et al, 2001;Ruiter and de Graaf, 2006), which suggests that church members are more likely to be involved in voluntary organizations than non-members, individuals belonging to a religious denomination show a higher probability of working voluntarily and spending money. Since religious organizations are among the dominant voluntary organizations in most European societies (Gaskin and Smith, 1995), this does not mean that religious involvement boosts volunteering in general.…”

“…Those researchers that have been interested in understanding crossnational aspects of philanthropic behavior have focused their attention on explaining voluntary labor supply, while charitable cash donations are disregarded. Furthermore, they used primarily a sociological approach in order to explore how specific country-level contextual factors relate to volunteering (see, e.g., Salamon and Anheier, 1998;Curtis et al, 2001;Parboteeah et al, 2004). These analyses, however, ignore that cross-country variation in volunteering rates might not only be attributed to differences in cultural or institutional factors, but also be driven by differences in individual determinants of charitable behavior.…”

“…A possible interpretation for those nations with low membership rates is that, regardless of religious, political, or economic factors, societies characterized by extended family systems may be lower in voluntary association activity than societies without this characteristic (Curtis et al, 2001). This argumentation is in line with the findings of Reher (1998), whose analysis of family ties across societies shows a "dividing line" between southern European societies, with their history of depending on strong and extended families to care for the elderly and the poor, versus northern European and North American societies, with their weaker family systems and greater reliance on public and private organizations to provide social assistance.…”

Structural Approaches in the Sociology of Social Movements

“…Urbanization, education, communication, and other changes described above have contributed to the emergence of new values that are impacting political participation around the world (Curtis, Baer, and Grabb 2001;Inglehart and Baker 2000). Because these processes are global, they are producing parallel, although not identical, developments in different countries (Giugni 2002).…”

Chapter Three. Is Altruism More Effective Where It Is Required More? Collectivity-Orientation And Involvement In Interest, Issue And Religious Associations

“…The larger the intermediate sphere of associations of a society, the better the prospects of its social integration. For these reasons, associations have been extensively studied in comparative perspective by social scientists (Anheier/Salamon 2001, Curtis/Baer/Grabb 2001, Schofer/Fourcade-Gourinchas 2001, Gabriel et al 2002, van Deth 2006.…”