Social Volunteering in Welfare States: Where Crowding Out Should Occur

Abstract

This article evaluates the influence of welfare state policy on individual social volunteering. Unlike previous studies that have investigated the relationship between the welfare state and civic engagement, this contribution focuses on those areas of civil society that are most directly related to public welfare state activities. Moreover, it is assumed that welfare state policy does not uniformly affect the civic engagement of various social groups. The analyses provide support for the crowding out hypothesis: individual social volunteering is lower in extensive welfare states than it is in countries that spend less on welfare state policy. However, when group‐specific welfare state effects are modelled, it is revealed that the crowding out effect of public social services does not hold for the low‐income group. Additionally, extensive welfare policy reduces the negative effect of low affluence on social volunteering. Crowding out and crowding in thus go hand in hand: while state activities indeed serve as a substitute for social volunteering in some places, in others they are found to have a stimulating effect.

Heterogeneity in Crowding-Out: When Are Charitable Donations Responsive To Government Support?

“…While some studies find positive relations between government funding and private donations (Brooks, 2003;Khanna & Sandler, 2000;Okten & Weisbrod, 2000;Sokolowski, 2013), most studies find a negative correlation (Andreoni & Payne, 2003, 2011Dokko, 2009;Isaac & Norton, 2013). In a cross-national analysis with Eurobarometer data, Scheepers and Grotenhuis (2005) find that in liberal welfare states more people give to alleviate poverty than in other welfare state regimes.…”

“…The first line of research takes a rather sociological approach. Incorporating welfare state regime theories and analyzing survey data, studies in this area investigate the effect of cross-national characteristics on different forms of individual participation like volunteering or organizational memberships (Gesthuizen, van der Meer, & Scheepers, 2008;Kaariainen & Lehtonen, 2006;Koster, 2007;Scheepers & Grotenhuis, 2005;Stadelmann-Steffen, 2011;van Oorschot & Arts, 2005). The second strand of research consists largely of work of economists and concerns private charitable giving.…”

“…The second strand of research consists largely of work of economists and concerns private charitable giving. Here, crowding-out is mostly translated as individuals compensating with donations what the government does not provide (Andreoni, 1993;Andreoni & Payne, 2003, 2011Okten & Weisbrod, 2000;Payne, 1998;Ribar & Wilhelm, 2002).…”

Social Capital and Generosity

“…"These processes are not reducible to the characteristics of the individuals living there" (Rotolo & Wilson, 2012, p. 453). Most of this work takes the nation-state as the aggregate unit of analysis and has begun to illuminate the role of democracy (Voicu & Voicu, 2009), the welfare state (Stadelmann-Steffen, 2011), and religion (Lim & MacGregor, 2012;Ruiter & De Graaf, 2006) in contributing to cross-national variation in volunteering. But rates of formal and informal volunteering and charitable giving also vary across regions within nations (Pichler & Wallace, 2007).…”

Public mental healthcare: towards a superfluous safety net

“…Often regulatory barriers, thresholds, waiting lists and lack of insurance hamper access to healthcare (Schout et al, 2011). Moreover, the WHO (2008) points out that professionals in a market-driven healthcare system hinder the involvement of civil society (see also Stadelmann-Steffen, 2011). In a market-driven healthcare system, providers of welfare and care look for ways to expand their services, not ways to activate informal care.…”