Volunteering throughout life

Voluntary work highlights some of the fundamental values of modern Western societies such as solidarity, justice and democracy. It is civic participation in its purest form. Health, education, culture or environmental protection are just some of the many causes for which voluntary workers are involved. In general, there is no doubt that a developed voluntary sector is socially desirable for any socio-political community.

Voluntary work highlights some of the fundamental values of modern Western societies such as solidarity, justice and democracy. It is civic participation in its purest form

Although we do not have precise data on the economic value produced, there is no doubt that the voluntary sector also makes a considerable contribution to GDP. For all these reasons, 2011 was declared the "European Year of Volunteering" at the initiative of the European Parliament, in order to give greater visibility and support to voluntary work. This short paper reflects on possibilities for promoting voluntary work from a life-cycle perspective, with a special focus on older people, and with an emphasis on the situation in Spain and Portugal.

Although precise data on the economic value produced are not available, there is no doubt that the voluntary sector also makes a considerable contribution to GDP.

Volunteers are often driven by a sense of moral duty and a normative identification with the cause in question. This noble altruism and the willingness to contribute to the cohesion of the community in which they live should be points of emphasis in recruitment campaigns1. At the same time, there are other motives that can be appealed to in order to attract new volunteers. Studies show that participation in voluntary work is beneficial in the long term in terms of employment and wages (Wilson&Musick 2003).

Participation in voluntary work is beneficial in the long term in terms of employment and wages. 

Voluntary work facilitates the establishment of new contacts and the acquisition of new skills and thus increases the social and human capital of volunteers. The fact that volunteering is valued in the labour market is little known and can be exploited to attract more volunteers.

Volunteering facilitates the establishment of new contacts and the acquisition of new skills and thus increases the social and human capital of volunteers.

However, there are also barriers to the promotion of volunteering, the most important of which is the availability of time. This is often the first thing people mention when asked about their reasons for not volunteering. In fact, when distinguished by employment status, the people most active in volunteering tend to be part-time workers2 . For this reason, long working hours and split working hours may be an important factor in explaining the low participation rates in Spain and Portugal. According to Eurobarometer data, both countries rank at the bottom of the European Union in terms of the percentage of people who volunteer at least occasionally, with 15 and 12 per cent respectively, compared to the European average of 24 per cent, and in stark contrast to countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark where approximately every second person is active as a volunteer (European Parliament 2012)3.

Participation rates in Spain and Portugal place, according to Eurobarometer data, both countries at the bottom of the European Union in terms of the percentage of people who volunteer at least occasionally, with 15 and 12 per cent, respectively, compared to the European average of 24%.

Another key finding in the literature is that participation in voluntary work has an important element of inertia and routine (Lancee &Radl 2014). Taking all this into account, it makes sense to concentrate recruitment efforts for volunteering on young people, who are open to new experiences, and retired people who have a greater availability of time. This is exactly what the campaign called "Dale colour al mundo" ("Give colour to the world") carried out during the European Year of Volunteering in Spain4 tried to do. In Portugal, the special event dedicated to the European Year consisted of a seminar on volunteering in times of crisis (European Commission 2012).

For politics, the group of older people is of special interest not only because retired people have time, but also because they are becoming more and more educated (many voluntary tasks are demanding and require a certain amount of preparation). The image of older people has changed a lot and they are no longer generally seen as frail and in need of help, but able to help themselves (at least up to a certain age). It is no coincidence that the year following the European Year of Volunteering, 2012, was declared the European Year of Active Ageing. Unfortunately, the incidence of older volunteers in Spain and Portugal is not higher than that of the general population. A study based on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe states that the rate of participation in voluntary work among older people in Spain is the lowest of all the countries analysed.

The image of older people has changed a lot and they are no longer generally seen as frail and in need of help, but able to help themselves (at least up to a certain age).

According to these data, only 2.4% of Spaniards over 50 do voluntary work, compared to 9.6% in the average of the ten countries in the sample and 20.6% in the Netherlands, which is at the other end of the distribution (Erlinghagen & Hank 2006: 571). In other words, there is much potential for increasing volunteering among older people in the Iberian Peninsula. A recent longitudinal study recommends focusing on recent retirees, because they are often looking for new activities to fill the time no longer occupied by paid work (Tang 2015).

Only 2.4% of Spaniards over 50 do voluntary work, compared to 20.6% in the Netherlands.

A notable problem in research on volunteering is the imperfect measurement of this type of activity in the usual surveys. As it is a phenomenon with a multifaceted nature, it is difficult to design questionnaire questions that are both sufficiently broad and precise. A common definition of the concept of (formal) voluntary work refers to "any unpaid institutionalised activity whose purpose is to benefit particular individuals, groups or organisations" (Wilson 2000: 15).

A major problem in volunteering research is the imperfect measurement of volunteering in standard surveys. It is therefore important to improve the information available through the production of quality data.

This can encompass activities as diverse as accompanying the elderly, administrative work in an NGO and cyber-activism. The degree of involvement is also very diverse, and it is not the same to carry out a weekly activity lasting several hours as to be nothing more than a passive member of an organisation. In this sense, it is important to distinguish between volunteering and associationism. For example, the coach of a children's sports team can be considered to be doing voluntary work for the benefit of society, but not the amateur player who is only doing personal physical exercise. In many countries (including Spain and Portugal), moreover, the church with its charitable work continues to play an important role in the voluntary sector, but other of its activities do not have this charitable character. All these conceptualisations add to the usual limitations of surveys (respondents whose memory had been more active than was actually the case, etc.) which may bias our knowledge of the phenomenon. Large variations in participation rates in volunteer work arise as a consequence of the methodology used. It is therefore important to improve the information available through the production of quality data.

The European Commission recommends the implementation of the "Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work" published by the International Labour Organisation on the measurement of volunteer work in all member states. The John Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies is actively promoting this initiative with its Global VolunteerMeasurement Project (Haddock 2015). The Portuguese National Institute of Statistics has included part of the standard questionnaire in a household survey. It would be desirable after the end of this pilot phase to include the full questionnaire in the labour force survey. Unfortunately, the Spanish National Statistical Institute has not yet taken steps to bring the methodology of the Labour Force Survey into line with the international standard.

1In some cases it may be better to offer no financial reward to prospective volunteers than a token amount. Economic studies have shown that small amounts of extrinsic incentives can even be harmful and undermine people's intrinsic motivation (referred to as "crowdingout").

2Although the unemployed should have even more time at their disposal, they do not have high participation rates, quite the contrary.

3The validity of the survey data on this issue can be questioned. However, according to comparable time use data collected by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Spain is also among the countries with the lowest volunteering frequencies, especially among men (UNECE 2011).

4Other initiatives such as the "Valores Solidarios" (Solidarity Values) campaign of the Community of Madrid focus exclusively on promoting volunteering among young people.

References

CEPE (2011): “Aprovechamiento del potencial del voluntariado”, Informe No. 10 de Políticas sobre el Envejecimiento de la CEPE.Comisión Económica de las Naciones Unidas para Europa. Geneva.

Erlinghagen, Marcel &Karsten Hank (2006): “Theparticipation of olderEuropeans in volunteerwork”, Ageing&Society, vol. 26, 567–584.

European Commission (2012): “Report from the Commission to the European Parlament, the European Council, the European Social and Economic Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the implementation, results and overall assessment of the 2011 European Year of Volunteering”, COM(2012) 781 final. Bruselas.

Haddock, Megan (2015): “Good News and More Good News: The Measurement of Volunteer Activity”, E-IAVE June 2015, Newsletter of the International Association for Volunteer Effort. En línea: https://www.iave.org/iavewp/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/June-E- IAVE.pdf (último acceso: 4 de septiembre 2015).

Lancee, Bram & Jonas Radl (2014): “Volunteering over the Life Course”, Social Forces, vol. 93(2): 833–862.

Wilson, John, and Marc A. Musick (2003) “Doing Well by Doing Good: Volunteering and Occupational Achievement among American Women.” Sociological Quarterly, vol44(3):433–50.

Parlamento Europeo (2012): “Eurobarómetro especial 75.2. Voluntariado y solidaridad

intergeneracional”. TNS Opinion & Social.Bruselas.

Salamon, Lester M. (2011): “Putting Volunteer Work on the Economic Map of the World: Why and how”, Keynote speech, Conference “Europe of Active Citizens”,30 de Septiembre 2011, Warzaw.

Tang, Fengyan (2015): “Retirement Patterns and Their Relationship to Volunteering”, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. Published ahead of Print on August 26, 2015.

Wilson, John (2000): “Volunteering.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 26: 215–240.