Passions, People and Appreciation: Making Volunteering Work for Young People 

Conclusions

A relatively high percentage of young Australians participate in volunteer work:

• by age 20, more than half (52%) had participated in some kind of volunteer work;
• at age 21, nearly a half (46%) had participated in some kind of volunteer work during the previous year;
• just over a fifth – 20.2% at age 20 and 22.7% at age 21 – participate in volunteer work at least once a month (and nearly half of these at least once a week).

The most frequently reported types of volunteer work were fundraising for charities and other organisations and sports-related work (other than playing sport). Child care (of children other than those they lived with) and volunteer work associated with a church or youth group were also frequently reported. The frequency of participation in the various types of volunteer varied somewhat with the wording of the questions.

Participation in community volunteer work is widespread across all categories of young people. Overall levels of participation and participation for particular types of volunteer work, however, do vary among young people from different personal, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. The following list of the influences on volunteer work summarises, as far as is possible, the sometimes inconsistent results at different ages and for different analyses. In order of influence, the characteristics that were most strongly associated with doing community volunteer work at least once a month were:

1. Socioeconomic status. The higher the socioeconomic status of the family of origin of the young person, the greater the likelihood of their doing volunteer work at least monthly. The 20% of the cohort from the highest socioeconomic background, in particular, generally had a markedly higher level of participation in volunteer work. Even so, the difference in volunteer work between highest and lowest socioeconomic quintiles was only of the order of eight percentage points. Many young people from the lowest socioeconomic quintile also do volunteer work at least once a month.
   The reasons for the higher level of participation in volunteer work by young people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are not clear. The analyses show that it is not because of any of the other characteristics examined in the study – it is not because of cultural background, the outcomes of schooling, or labour market participation. It may genuinely reflect higher levels of resources to which such young people have access – resources that create greater opportunities for volunteer work. The reasons may, however, be more subtle. For instance, the greater involvement in volunteer may reflect greater integration with community groups such as sporting organisations or churches.
2. Self-concept. Young people with a more positive self-concept are more likely to do volunteer work. Again, the differences are not large – around six or seven percentage points between the highest and lowest categories of self-concept. It is intuitively plausible that this should be the case, that people who see themselves as more outgoing, confident, and so on should be more likely to be involved in community groups and, through them, in volunteer work.
   The direction of causality between self-concept and volunteer work, however, is suggestive, but not absolutely conclusive. The self-concept of panel members was measured several years before their participation in volunteer work, so it is unlikely that their participation in volunteer work in 2000 or 2001 influenced their self-concept in 1997. Nevertheless, self-concept, when it was measured, may have been part of a broader matrix of social involvement, including greater social engagement in 1997 and may reflect, at least partly, prior participation in volunteer work.
3. Country of birth of the parent’s of respondents. Young people whose parents had both been born in Australia were more likely to participate in volunteer work at least once a month than were other young people. One issue that may be involved in a lower level of participation by young people from a migrant background is social exclusion (or at levels of community participation) because of poorer English-language skills. The analyses addressed this possibility and found no evidence to support. Explicit measurements of the frequency with which English was spoken at home found little or no relationship with participation in volunteer work. Analyses in which literacy was held constant did not alter the findings. Perhaps most importantly, panel members whose parents were both born in a mainly English-speaking country (other than Australia) were only as likely (and often marginally less likely) as panel members whose parents had both been born in a mainly non-English speaking country. Instead the results are consistent with lower levels of participation in volunteer work because of the severing of social bonds that may accompany migration.
4. Sex. Young women were more likely to do volunteer work than were young men. The difference, however, although consistent overall, was only between three and five percentage points. The patterns varied considerably too across types of volunteer work. For instance, young men were more likely to participate in sports-related volunteer work while young women were more likely to undertake child care.
5. Current study and work. Young people in full-time work were less likely to do volunteer work at least once a month – possibly because of a lack of time, but also possibly because of a different set of priorities. Young people employed full-time and studying part-time (and therefore presumably even busier) were slightly more likely to do volunteer work — and people neither working nor studying also had reasonably low levels of volunteer work. People engaged in part-time work or full-time study or both appeared to participate in volunteer work more frequently.
6. Indigenous status. Indigenous youth are substantially more likely than non-Indigenous youth to do volunteer work. In the context of the effect of other characteristics, the differences of about six to eight percentage points between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth are relatively large. The reason Indigenous status is sixth in this list rather than first is only because Indigenous youth is a small category – hence statistically it does not explain a great deal of the variation in participation in volunteer work.
7. Literacy and numeracy and Year 12 completion. Literacy and numeracy is fairly closely related to completion of Year 12 and together they are measures of learning outcomes. The results for these two characteristics are not consistent at age 20 and at age 21. At 20 years, at least monthly participation in volunteer work is at best only modestly related to the years of schooling completed – the maximum difference is only three or four percentage points. At age 21, there is no relationship at all.
   Literacy and numeracy shows the opposite pattern – it is only barely significant at age 20, but is substantially stronger at age 21, although much of the relationship with participation in volunteer work disappears once other variables are held constant.
   Together, these two variables provide some modest evidence that young people with higher cognitive school outcomes are more likely to participate in volunteer work at least monthly.
8. Location. There is some evidence that young people who lived in rural areas are more likely than other young people to do volunteer work at least monthly. At age 21, the difference in participation rate between urban and rural areas is about seven or eight percentage points. At age 20, however, there was no relationship at all between urban/rural background and volunteer work.
9. Disability. Similarly there is no relation-ship between disability status and frequency of participation in volunteer work at age 20, but the relationship is somewhat stronger – disabled people are more likely to participate frequently in volunteer work. Given the inconsistent evidence of a relationship, and the relatively small proportion of disabled persons, its overall influence on participation in volunteer work is given a low rating.
   The analysis has emphasised the differences in the level of volunteer work among categories of young people. It is important to note that these differences – even for the characteristics most strongly related to frequency of volunteer work – are relatively modest. The main lessons to be drawn from the analysis are the relatively high overall levels of volunteer work and the distribution of volunteer labour across all categories of young people.

References

• Long, M. 1996, Samples and Sampling for the Y95 LSAY Cohort. Technical Paper No. 8. ACER, Melbourne.
• Marks, G. & Long, M. 2000, Weighting the 1995 Year 9 Cohort Sample for Differential Response Rates and Sample Attrition, LSAY Technical Report No 15. ACER, Melbourne.