Volunteering

Abstract

Volunteering is any activity in which time is given freely to benefit another person, group or cause. Volunteering is part of a cluster of helping behaviors, entailing more commitment than spontaneous assistance but narrower in scope than the care provided to family and friends. Although developed somewhat independently, the study of volunteerism and of social activism have much in common. Since data gathering on volunteering from national samples began about a quarter of a century ago, the rate for the United States has been stable or, according to some studies, rising slightly. Theories that explain volunteering by pointing to individual attributes can be grouped into those that emphasize motives or self-understandings on the one hand and those that emphasize rational action and cost-benefit analysis on the other. Other theories seek to complement this focus on individual level factors by pointing to the role of social resources, specifically social ties and organizational activity, as explanations for volunteering. Support is found for all theories, although many issues remained unresolved. Age, gender and race differences in volunteering can be accounted for, in large part, by pointing to differences in self-understandings, human capital, and social resources. Less attention has been paid to contextual effects on volunteering and, while evidence is mixed, the impact of organizational, community, and regional characteristics on individual decisions to volunteer remains a fruitful field for exploration. Studies of the experience of volunteering have only just begun to plot and explain spells of volunteering over the life course and to examine the causes of volunteer turnover. Examining the premise that volunteering is beneficial for the helper as well as the helped, a number of studies have looked at the impact of volunteering on subjective and objective well-being. Positive effects are found for life-satisfaction, self-esteem, self-rated health, and for educational and occupational achievement, functional ability, and mortality. Studies of youth also suggest that volunteering reduces the likelihood of engaging in problem behaviors such as school truancy and drug abuse.

Warm and Supportive Parenting Can Discourage Offspring’s Civic Engagement in the Transition to Adulthood

“…Evidence exists that a mere membership or a low-scale participation in voluntary organizations (e.g., attending meetings occasionally) suffices to find new friends and to extend one's social network (Wollebaek & Selle 2002). Moreover, active participation in hobby associations and sports clubs certainly provides opportunities for socializing and benefits individuals in other ways, although it does not necessarily produce collective goods as volunteering does (Wilson 2000). We therefore propose that youth who seek new sources of social support are likely to join any kind of voluntary associations, not only those that work toward the common good.…”

“…Warmth and support experienced in the family may detain individuals from less socially desirable or more confrontational activities, such as AIDS-related volunteering or political activism, while fostering purely prosocial, conflict-free types of engagement, such as nonpolitical volunteering. Volunteering is commonly understood as unpaid voluntary work to benefit other persons or the community in general (Wilson 2000). In most cases, volunteers produce some goods and services directly, such as by cooking for the poor or by coaching a children's sports team.…”

“…Additionally, we considered third variables that might covary with supportive parenting or with civic engagement and might therefore produce spurious or trivial relationships between these constructs. For instance, socioeconomic status (SES), which is usually assessed through educational and occupational attainment as well as income, is consistently associated with higher civic engagement (Verba et al 1995;Wilson 2000) and with more authoritative as well as indulgent parenting (Hoff, Laursen, & Tardif 2002). Furthermore, in most countries, females volunteer to a similar extent that males do, but females are less likely to be politically active and to hold leadership positions (Verba et al 1995;Wilson 2000).…”

“…For instance, socioeconomic status (SES), which is usually assessed through educational and occupational attainment as well as income, is consistently associated with higher civic engagement (Verba et al 1995;Wilson 2000) and with more authoritative as well as indulgent parenting (Hoff, Laursen, & Tardif 2002). Furthermore, in most countries, females volunteer to a similar extent that males do, but females are less likely to be politically active and to hold leadership positions (Verba et al 1995;Wilson 2000). Unemployment and singlehood are related to a lower embeddedness in social networks and therefore reduce the likelihood of being recruited by voluntary organizations, whereas having small children limits the time available for leisure activities, including civic engagement (Wilson 2000).…”

“…Furthermore, in most countries, females volunteer to a similar extent that males do, but females are less likely to be politically active and to hold leadership positions (Verba et al 1995;Wilson 2000). Unemployment and singlehood are related to a lower embeddedness in social networks and therefore reduce the likelihood of being recruited by voluntary organizations, whereas having small children limits the time available for leisure activities, including civic engagement (Wilson 2000). In turn, positive parenting may reduce the later risk of unemployment in the offspring (Kokko & Pulkkinen 2000) and appears to be implicated in the intergenerational transmission of social competence and romantic relationship quality (Ehrensaft, Knous-Westfall, & Cohen 2011).…”