Why Would You Do It? Age and Motivation to Become a Fire Service Volunteer

McLennan, Jim; Birch, Adrian

doi:10.1375/ajop.1.1.7

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 1 publication

(2 reference statements)

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“…OGS are primarily mid-career medical professionals who do not have enough time to donate and are looking for a less binding form of volunteering. This finding differs from previous studies that have found that the average age of emergency services volunteers is increasing, due to sociological changes such as two-income families and longer working hours [10,73].…”

Section: Differences In the Professional Background And Demographic Ccontrasting

confidence: 99%

Motivation of emergency medical services volunteers: a study of organized Good Samaritans

Khalemsky

Schwartz

Herbst

et al. 2020

Isr J Health Policy Res

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Background: Early professional care in emergencies is beneficial in general and its utility has been proven in many studies, particularly in regard to out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest. A person in distress can expect help from two sources: bystanders, including family members, community members, and complete strangers; and professionals, including emergency medical services, first responders, firefighters, and police officers. Emergency Medical Services try to achieve faster first response times through various approaches. Recent technological and social developments have enabled a new form of Emergency Medical Services volunteering, called Organized Good Samaritans, which represents a new layer between occasional volunteers and time-donation volunteers. Organized Good Samaritans are people with a medical background, particularly off-duty medical professionals who are willing and able to provide first aid in emergencies in their vicinity. Methods: A qualitative formalization of technology-enabled Organized Good Samaritans is presented. One thousand eight hundred Israeli National Emergency Medical Services volunteers were surveyed using Clary and Snyder's Volunteer Functions Inventory instrument. Demographics, professional backgrounds, and volunteering functions of Time-Donation Volunteers and Organized Good Samaritans are compared. Results: Significant differences between Organized Good Samaritans and Time Donation Volunteers were found. Demographically, Organized Good Samaritans are older and the percentage of males is higher. Professionally, the percentage of physicians and nurses among Organized Good Samaritans is higher. Motivation measures find that the motivation of Organized Good Samaritans is higher and the order of importance of the volunteering functions differs.

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Section: Differences In the Professional Background And Demographic Ccontrasting

confidence: 99%

Motivation of emergency medical services volunteers: a study of organized Good Samaritans

Khalemsky

Schwartz

Herbst

et al. 2020

Isr J Health Policy Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They also found that women score higher than men on all reasons to volunteer except for social motivation, on which they score similarly. Furthermore, both Francis and Jones () and McLennan and Birch () found very few intergenerational differences between the reasons to volunteer for emergency management volunteers. Both investigations found that younger (<35 years old) and more mature volunteers (>35 years old) mainly volunteered for the same reasons: “giving back to the community” and “the content of the volunteering work.” However, younger volunteers more frequently reported “career advancement” and “dealing with their own problems/emotions” as reasons to volunteer.…”

Section: Becoming a Volunteermentioning

confidence: 95%

Volunteering research in Australia: A narrative review

Kragt

Holtrop

2019

Australian Journal of Psychology

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Objective Australian research on volunteering is rich and diverse, but also increasingly fragmented. In an attempt to promote a more integrated study of volunteering, we review volunteering research conducted in Australia, using volunteering journey as a framework. Specifically, we summarise literature on volunteer characteristics, motivations, benefits, psychological contract, commitment, and withdrawal. Method A comprehensive review yielded 152 studies on volunteering conducted in Australia. Results We find that volunteers have distinct characteristics, such as being older, better connected, employed, and residing in rural areas. There are a variety of reasons that prompt individuals to volunteer, and this motivation does change over time. Volunteering leads to better psychological well‐being, as well as increases in social and human capital. Volunteer expectations and commitment are key drivers of ongoing volunteering. Finally, stress, work–family conflict, and negative interactions with others lead to volunteer withdrawal. Conclusion A lot is known about volunteering, however, future advancement of the field will depend on better integration across disciplines and domains. Currently, volunteering is viewed as a set of distinct stages, and a more integrated approach is required. We also note a lack of theoretical and methodological rigour in many Australian studies on volunteering.

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“…Previous literature on female firefighters suggests that women experience work segregation (Yoder and Aniakudo 1997; Grube-Farrell 2002), discrimination (Hulett et al . 2008b; Branch-Smith and Pooley 2010), tokenism (Yoder and Aniakudo 1997) and sexual harassment (Mclennan and Birch 2006; Hulett et al . 2008a; Hulett et al 2008b).…”

Section: Women In Male Dominated Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2008a; Hulett et al 2008b). The existing literature does well to explore the gender related discrimination occurring at both operational and auxiliary levels within specific emergency services (Mclennan and Birch 2006; Branch-Smith and Pooley 2010), however, it often fails to address how women make sense of and negotiate gender within the confines of masculinized workplaces. The lack of focus on gender negotiations in firefighting has inevitably led to a lack of deep engagement with women's ability to ‘do gender’ (West and Zimmerman 1987) within these organizations.…”

Section: Women In Male Dominated Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond ‘Token’ Firefighters: Exploring Women's Experiences of Gender and Identity at Work

Perrott

2016

Sociological Research Online

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Despite the increasing percentage of women entering masculinized workplaces, certain organizations consistently see little change in the gender makeup of their staff. Contemporary scholarship suggests that women in rigidly gendered organizations are often assigned a token status and are victimized due to their gender. This study relocates the conversations of women as tokens towards a fresh conversation of women's agency in masculinized workplaces. This paper uses ten qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork to discuss how female firefighters navigate their gender at work. This article draws on reflexive accounts of everyday gendered negotiations to look at how the female firefighters ‘do gender’ within a specific fire service in Australia. I argue that emergency services, such as firefighting, create a contradictory field where women are located in (1) a paradoxical environment where the ‘female body’ is problematized (2) a work environment where they have to repeatedly prove their cultural competence in order to confirm their professional identity. The findings suggest that while female firefighters do have agency, tokenism locates many of them in a ‘never quite there’ bind that challenges their ability to progress into leadership roles within the service. This article concludes that the nuanced difference between, and at times, within the women's narratives problematizes the bounds of personal agency and cultural change. This consequently results in resistance to policies by some women that may benefit like-situated women, such as affirmative action.

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Why Would You Do It? Age and Motivation to Become a Fire Service Volunteer

Cited by 12 publications

References 1 publication

Motivation of emergency medical services volunteers: a study of organized Good Samaritans

Motivation of emergency medical services volunteers: a study of organized Good Samaritans

Volunteering research in Australia: A narrative review

Beyond ‘Token’ Firefighters: Exploring Women's Experiences of Gender and Identity at Work

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