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OCR for page 23
The Economics of
Volunteerism: A Review
Carol Jusenius Romero
The role of the volunteer in America has become a topic of
public interest, mainly because of the confluence of three trends.
First, all levels of government are encouraging volunteer work
as a substitute for government's declining role in the provision of
social services. Second, women historically the source of much
volunteerism in America have been entering the work force in
increasing numbers. Finally, growth in the size of the retired
population has led to discussion of ways to use the time, talents,
and energy of older people. But although there is interest in
understanding and encouraging volunteerism, relatively little is
known about the activity.
Volunteerism is often perceived as donations of time or labor
but it can also include donations of money or goods, and in each of
these forms it varies widely along several dimensions.
Volunteer activities take place in settings that have different
degrees of structure and formality. Such activities may be quite
informal, occurring in a casual, unstructured way; or they may
be organized but not performed within a formally structured
group; or both the activity and the group may be structured and
formally organized. To illustrate: volunteer activities range from
a neighbor helping a neighbor, to a group of parents organizing to
Carol Jusenius Romero is staff economist at the National Commission for
Employment Policy, Washington, D.C.
23
OCR for page 24
24
CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
clean a playground, to a formal volunteer group, such as the PTA
or Volunteers of America, performing formally specified func-
tions.
Volunteer activities also vary in their time requirements. Peo-
ple may participate in them from 1 to 52 weeks in a year, any day
of the week, and for any number of hours. Some activities are
spread out over weeks or years; others are concentrated (for
example, within communities after a disaster strikes).
Finally, volunteering, like other activities, usually has some
unpleasant aspects, and for people to be willing to undertake
unpleasant tasks they must be compensated in some fashion.
Compensation for volunteering can take a variety of forms.
Sometimes a volunteer receives only psychic, personal satisfac-
tion, or there may be some public recognition. A range of mone-
tary compensations exists as well. Some people receive income
tax deductions for their donations. There are also more direct
means of monetary compensation. For example, the Foster
Grandparent program gives participants a stipend to supplement
their income, and people who work for the Salvation Army earn
their entire income from this activity. To the extent that the
earnings of these individuals are less than could be obtained in
another type of work, this differential is equivalent to donating
money or time.
A key question of this paper is why people volunteer. Is altru-
ism the primary motivation, or do people volunteer out of some
form of self-interest? Are people motivated "to volunteer" in gen-
eral, or are they motivated to volunteer for particular types of
activities? Such questions highlight an important policy area. If
volunteerism is to be promoted to meet social needs, then the
mechanisms that encourage volunteerism must be understood.
Survey results suggest a range of reasons for volunteering.
According to the data in Table 1, nearly 30 percent of people who
volunteer time "thought [they] would enjoy doing the work; fee}
needed." Almost 25 percent volunteered because a child, relative,
or friend was involved, and 11 percent reported that they wanted
work experience. Generally, motivating forces include children,
relatives, and friends; religious beliefs; political or social con-
cerns; personal history or interest in the activity; social pres-
sures; and a desire to keep busy, fee] productive, meet new peo-
ple, or interact socially.
The large percentage of multiple responses shown in the table
OCR for page 25
THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
TABLE 1 Reasons for First Becoming Involved in a Volunteer
Activity
25
Reasons
Percent of Adult
Volunteers
Wanted to do something useful;
help others; do goood deeds for
others
Had an interest in the activity or
work
Thought I would enjoy doing the
work; feel needed
Had a child, relative, or friend
who was involved in the activity
or would benefit from it
Religious concerns
Wanted to learn and get experi-
ence; work experience; help get
ajob
Had a lot of free time
Thought my volunteer work
would help keep taxes or other
costs down
Other
Don't recall
Total
45
35
29
23
21
11
6
l
5
181a
Total exceeds 100 percent because of multiple responses.
SOURCE: Gallup Organization, Inc., Americans Volunteer: Survey for Independent
Sector (Princeton, N.J., June 1981).
suggests that individuals volunteer for a combination of reasons:
No one motive, taken alone, is likely to be sufficient. After all,
not every parent volunteers for a child-related activity and not
every religious person volunteers for a church-synagogue or
social welfare cause.
This paper stems from my work dealing with people's willing-
ness to volunteer for formal organizations. The data and research
cited here reflect that focus, although as indicated later many of
the issues are applicable to other forms of volunteering as well.
The paper is divided into four sections. The first presents data on
Americans' unpaid work for formal volunteer organizations; it
provides a backdrop to the analyses that follow. The next section
reviews a number of economic analyses of this type of volunteer-
ing to determine how the motivation to volunteer has been ana
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26
CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
lyzed conceptually and empirically and why motivations matter
for public policy. The third section suggests areas for future
research on volunteerism, and the final section gives a brief sum-
mary and offers some concluding thoughts.
WORK WITHOUT PAY FOR FORMAL
ORGANIZATIONS
About 75 percent of the work people do without pay is for
formal organizations.) The amount of time people spend in this
way and the types of organizations for which they volunteer are
discussed below.
Amount of Time
The proportion of Americans who volunteer has risen some-
what over the past 20 years. In 1965,21 percent of women and 15
percent of men did some volunteer work. By 1981, participation
in volunteer activities had risen to 28 percent among women and
30 percent among men.2
Although these figures may suggest a fairly widespread
involvement in volunteer activities among Americans, a few cau-
tions are in order. First, the proportions are small compared to
the percentages of men and women who are either working or
looking for work (77 percent of men and 53 percent of women are
currently in the work force). Second, few people volunteer on a
continual basis. While cross-sectional data indicate that about 25
percent of middle-aged women volunteer in a given year, longitu-
dinal data reveal that fewer than 15 percent volunteer year after
year.3 Looking at it another way, fewer than 50 percent of women
volunteers in one year had volunteered more than once in the
recent past.
Other data on middle-aged women who volunteer illustrate
some of the range of variability in the amount of time spent
volunteering. Of all women who volunteer, the average participa-
tion time is 24 weeks per year; approximately 25 percent of those
women, however, spend between 49 and 52 weeks in this activity.
The average volunteer time per week for middle-aged women is 6
hours. More than 60 percent of women spend between 2 and 7
hours, 10 percent spend 1 hour, and another 10 percent spend 15
or more hours.3
OCR for page 27
THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
27
Data on men close to or at retirement age reveal similar vari-
ations in the amount of time spent volunteering.4 The 20 percent
who volunteer spend, on the average, 24 weeks per year in the
activity. About one-third of the volunteers participate 49 to 52
weeks and another one-third participate for 4 or fewer weeks.
During the weeks of volunteering the men average 7 hours in
this activity. More than 60 percent of the men spend between 2
and 7 hours, about 10 percent spend 1 hour, and more than 10
percent spend 15 or more hours.
Types of Volunteer Activities
There are many different types of formal organizations for
which people volunteer. Unfortunately, however, the available
data do not permit distinguishing among organizations accord-
ing to measures of either their social usefulness or the extent to
which volunteers must engage in unpleasant tasks to carry out
the organizations' goals. Still, these data do illustrate the broad
range of volunteer activities and the fact that different activities
seem to appeal to different types of people.
Formal volunteer activities range from the PTA to soup
kitchens to political and social causes. For instance, in 1981, 10
percent of the adult population volunteered for religious activi-
ties, 12 percent volunteered at hospitals or in other health-
related activities, another 12 percent volunteered for school-
related activities, 1 percent worked as poll watchers, 4 percent
worked as campaign workers the list goes on.5
It appears that sex and age play a role in the types of organiza-
tions for which people volunteer.6 Men are more likely than
women to participate in recreational and work-related activities;
women are more likely to participate in health, educational, and
religious activities. Further, adults are more likely than teenag-
ers to volunteer for political and work-related activities, while
teenagers are more likely to volunteer for health, recreational
and educational activities.
Longitudinal data confirm that as people age, they change the
type of organization for which they volunteer.7 Among women 37
to 51 years of age, 28 percent of the volunteers participated in
school activities and in such groups as Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts;
33 percent did church-related work; and another 30 percent vol-
unteered for hospitals, clinics, major community drives, and
OCR for page 28
28
CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
other social welfare or civic causes. Five years later, the women
volunteers (aged 42 to 56) had somewhat shifted their patterns of
volunteering. Fewer volunteered for schools and other child-
related activities (less than 20 percent), and more volunteered for
both church-related activities (over 40 percent) and for hospitals,
clinics, community drives, and civic causes (over 30 percent).
Taken together, these data suggest a richness and complexity
in the amount and type of unpaid work that occurs in this society.
The next section reviews analyses of the motivations that under-
lie the decision to volunteer.
ECONOMIC ANALYSES OF THE REASONS FOR
VOLUNTEERING
The economist's approach to analyzing the motivation to vol-
unteer is twofold: first, develop a behavioral model, and, second,
derive hypotheses from the model and test them empirically. The
empirical tests typically some form of regression analysis seek
to disentangle the various determinants of people's actions. For
example, a text might ask how parents' participation in volun-
teer activities is influenced by the presence of children in the
family, while simultaneously taking into account the parents'
educational levels, incomes, and work patterns.
The research reviewed here has been selected to illustrate the
economist's approach to the issue of why people volunteer. And as
such, these illustrations admittedly are not without limitations.
Nevertheless, they can be used to stimulate thought and discus-
sion about areas of study and suggest directions for future
research.
In the studies described below, two types of reasons for volun-
teering are considered: (1) satisfaction derived from helping oth-
ers and (2) direct personal benefit, independent of the extent to
which others are helped. These research efforts examine whether
altruism or personal benefits alone underlie an individual's moti-
vation to volunteer, how family considerations influence a per-
son's volunteerism, and the reasons why motivations of volun-
teerism are important to public policy.
Volunteering Motivated by Altruism
One of the first modern-day economic discussions of volun-
teerism is found in an article by Kenneth Boulding.8 Boulding
OCR for page 29
THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
29
suggested that although philanthropy or volunteerism is often
viewed as a transfer payment, for which there is no obvious recip-
rocation, from one individual to another, it may be more useful to
look at the benefits received by the giver for being philanthropic.
Boulding proposed two ways in which the giver may be compen-
sated: (1) "a certain glow of emotional virtue" for having been
philanthropic and (2) recognition that there is a "common iden-
tity in humanity."9
These two ways would now be called "altruism" by econo-
mists.~° The reward for volunteering motivated by altruism is
simply a good feeling for having been helpful to others. However,
more direct rewards for volunteering also exist (as indicated ear-
lier by the data in Able 1 on the reasons people say they volun-
teered). Some of the research efforts involving more direct
rewards for volunteerism are discussed below.
Experience As Compensation for Volunteering
Two studiesii tested the hypothesis that volunteerism is a form
of personal investment; that is, people volunteer to enhance their
future job and income prospects. Under this view, the fact that
volunteerism benefits others is coincidental; it is not an impor-
tant motivation.
The first article argues that women volunteer as a way of pre-
paring for (rejentry into the job market to gain experience and
information about possible future jobs. This hypothesis was
tested on a sample of women who had been in graduate school
between 1945 and 1951 using two dependent variables: hours of
volunteering in a year and hours of volunteering for organiza-
tions other than professional societies.
Two of the study's independent variables were intended to rep-
resent "a desire for training" in preparation for (rejentry into the
work force: (1) whether or not the woman was planning to work
in the near future and (2) the average comparable market wage
of the volunteer work that was done (a measure of the skill con-
tent of the activity). The results of the study showed that both
variables were positively related to volunteerism and statisti-
cally significant.~3
The author interpreted her results as follows:
Women, at least those in the education, income and age group most
actively participating in volunteer work, appear to be doing so in part
OCR for page 30
30
CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
for their own families but also to a great extent for themselves-to build
and maintain their human capital to aid in the job search.
. . . the volunteer organization remains one of the few institutions acces-
sible to these women for the important activity of maintaining or build-
ing human capital.~4
The results seem plausible for women of this particular age and
educational level. At the same time, however, there are some
limitations to the empirical work that call the results into ques-
tion.
First, the variable "comparable market wage of volunteer
work" need not be interpreted as an indicator of a desire for
training, but instead may indicate the status content and desir-
ability of different types of volunteer work. Women volunteering
for desirable, high-status activities may spend more hours volun-
teering than women who are in less desirable, Tower-status orga-
nizations or positions.
Second, the test of the variable "plans to work in the future" is
not "clean." This variable has been constructed in such a way
that women who are out of the labor force and plan to Took for
work are compared to two groups combined: those who do not
plan to work and those who are already working. A "cleaner"
test of the hypothesis would have been to include only the
former those not employed and not planning to Took for work-
in the reference group.
The inclusion of women who are already employed confuses the
issue. Because they are employed, they may supply fewer hours
of volunteer labor, but the reason for this reduction is not clear:
either they may not desire to (re~build their skills or they simply
may have less time to volunteer. There is also no information
about the relative number of employed and unemployed women.
Because of these limitations, it is impossible to state with cer-
tainty that volunteerism is used by women as a vehicle for easing
(rejentry into the Job market.
In the second article, Menchik and Weisbrod tested volun-
teerism as a form of investment by positing that people may
volunteer because it "raises one's future income by providing
work experience and potentially valuable contacts."~5 An alter-
native hypothesis was also posed: People may consider volunteer
time to be a type of consumer good, something to be enjoyed or
consumed. In contrast to the investment hypothesis, the con-
sumption hypothesis posits that people volunteer because they
OCR for page 31
THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
31
enjoy either the activity or the product of the activity. Under this
view, there are no negative aspects to volunteering for which
. -
compensation Is necessary.
These hypotheses were tested with a sample of working people
drawn from a national survey. Nearly two-thirds of those sur-
veyed were married men with a wife at home full-time; the
remainder were single heads of households, many of whom were
likely to be women. To allow for possible differences among types
of volunteer activities, there were several dependent variables,
all assessed in terms of hours: (1) total volunteer work, (2) volun-
teer work for elementary and secondary education, (3) volunteer
work for higher education, (4) volunteer work for welfare, and (5)
volunteer work for natural resources (environment).
The competing hypotheses were tested empirically by includ-
ing a person's wages as an independent variable in the regres-
sion. Wages measure the opportunity cost of volunteering; that
is, the money forgone by spending time not working for pay. If
people view volunteerism as a form of consumption, an inverse
relationship between wages and volunteering would be expected.
People make trade-offs between working (earning wages) and
volunteering; the higher the wage rate, the less likely a person is
to spend time volunteering rather than working. By contrast, if
people view volunteerism as a form of investment, a positive
relationship between wages and volunteerism would be expected.
The reasoning is as follows: "If those with greater ability to bene-
fit from volunteer work also earn more per hour in the absence of
volunteer work, we have a situation in which higher wage work-
ers may volunteer more hours than lower wage workers...."
The results of the study indicated that the relationship
between wages and hours of volunteerism is positive, which is
consistent with the hypothesis that volunteerism is a form of
investment. However, this interpretation of the results is ques-
tionable, because there are problems with the underlying theory.
First, rather than expecting a positive relationship between
wages and volunteerism under the investment hypothesis, it
would seem more reasonable to expect an inverse relationship.
People with low wages might have a greater desire to enhance
their future earnings than people with high wages. To the extent
that volunteering is a way of increasing future earnings, low-
wage earners could be expected to volunteer more (not less) than
high-wage earners.
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32
CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
A second problem concerns the empirical test of the alternative
hypotheses. Using a wage variable assumes that the only way
working people spend time volunteering is by giving up time for
paid employment. However, casual observation suggests that
people also volunteer after work, in the evenings, or on week-
ends. In other words, time for volunteering can also come from
time that would otherwise be devoted to either housework or
leisure.
The Effect of Family Obligations on Volunteering
This author's research raised more general questions about the
factors influencing volunteerism. One concern was to determine
the circumstances under which a person would volunteer, not-
withstanding household obligations.~7 Specific research ques-
tions focused on the relationship between volunteerism and the
movement of older Americans into retirement.
The research built on previous work analyzing how individ-
uals, operating within a family setting, make decisions about
spending their time (or money. Each family member divides
his or her time among three major categories: (1) work outside
the home, (2) work inside the home, and (3) leisure. The precise
way time is allocated to these categories mirrors the entire fami-
ly's preferences for goods bought in the market, goods produced
at home, and leisure. By selecting the combination that maxi-
mizes its utility (or happiness), the family simultaneously allo-
cates its members' time.
Maximizing household utility may require that a husband and
wife use their time differently over the family's life cycle, partic-
ularly with regard to their division of market and nonmarket (or
home) work and depending upon their comparative advantages
in these two activities. For example, over its life cycle a family
will generally be willing to have the woman spend proportion-
ately more time working full- or part-time at home, since men are
typically more productive in the sense of earning more in the
job market than in home work.
Including volunteerism as a way people may spend their time
required the addition of detail to this model. The first argument
to be considered was that people must be compensated for volun-
teering. Such compensation may be:
OCR for page 33
THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
33
· direct increased personal satisfaction due to "a feeling of
virtue," meeting new people, interacting socially, feeling produc-
tive, or keeping busy;
· increased welfare of another family member (This case rec-
ognized that a person operates within a family and that the out-
put from one person's work increases the goods and services that
another family member may enjoy.), and
· increased welfare of people outside the family. (Of the three
motivations for volunteering, this is the least tangible and repre-
sents the closest approximation to altruism.)
Second, it was posited that not all household decisions regard-
ing the use of time (or money) are equally important. Those
involving smaller portions of a household's time (or money) are
usually less important than those involving larger portions and
are made independently of major household decisions. (For exam-
ple, a decision to buy shoes or a tablecloth will be made indepen-
dently of a decision to buy or rent a house.)
Decisions about the amount and timing of work outside and
inside the home (including child care) are of major importance to
a family. Entering the job market or raising children typically
requires a substantial time commitment on the part of household
members. Also, the lack of flexibility usually found in the num-
ber and timing of hours of paid employment and the continual
nature of child care make these decisions more complex.
By contrast, the decision to volunteer may be either of major or
minor importance to a family. It need not consume a sizable por-
tion of a household's time (or income), and the amount and timing
of volunteerism is generally flexible.
Volunteerism, then, was hypothesized to assume a smaller role
in a family's life when the benefits accrue only to people outside
the family. Families would be unlikely to reduce their income,
their home-produced goods, or their leisure by sizable amounts in
order to help people not in the household. Only after the demands
of household members have been satisfied would families volun-
teer in this way.
However, if a family member (such as a child) benefits from the
volunteering, it was hypothesized that volunteerism would
assume greater importance and in fact would become a form of
homework. In this case, a family may be willing to (1) alter its
OCR for page 40
40
CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
tions of time, money, and goods. Although there are some data on
the amount (in terms of time) and the kinds of unpaid labor that
are donated to friends and neighbors, a complete picture would
include data on the amount of informal donations of money and
goods as well.
How donations of time, money, and goods are used is another
issue that data collection might help to address. For instance,
only a few sources document the extent to which people's volun-
teer time is devoted to (1) fund-raising events (so that others can
be paid to do the work) and (2) the work directly (see, for example,
the 1973 Survey of Giving and the 1981 Gallup). Less informa-
tion is found on the ways in which donated goods are used, dona-
tions that range from old clothes given to Volunteers of America
to residences left to universities after a person's death.
Another body of information concerns the timing of volun-
teerism. People volunteer during the weekdays, in the evenings
and on weekends; they volunteer for short but concentrated
periods of time and for longer, less intensive periods. Further,
different types of activities seem to have different time arrange-
ments. For example, participation in Little League activities
occurs after school hours and is somewhat concentrated in time;
donations to churches often occur once a week over the course of a
year; and donations of time, money, and goods for Toys for Needy
Children programs are concentrated in the holiday season.
Detailed information on the timing of volunteerism in the form of
unpaid labor specifically would improve estimates of the extent
people trade off paid employment, homework, and leisure for
volunteerism.
Finally, it has been mentioned that people are remunerated in
different ways for their volunteering. Documenting the range of
this variability could be useful if it can be proved more conclu-
sively that people respond differently to different rewards. In
addition, however, a special emphasis of data collecting should be
the earnings of people who work for pay for organizations that
rely on voluntary contributions. To the extent that these workers
earn less than they could earn elsewhere, the pay differential is
conceptually equivalent to a donation of money or time.
Motivations to Volunteer
Outlined below are some directions for research on the reasons
why people volunteer. Four areas are considered: (1) the volun
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THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
41
teer decision, (2) the amount and timing of volunteerism, (3) the
interrelationship among the different ways people volunteer, and
(4) the differences between formal and informal volunteering.
Some of the issues raised here could be investigated using the
existing National Longitudinal Surveys cohort of older women.
In 1974, 1976, and 1979, these women were asked a series of
questions about their participation in formal volunteer
organizations the type of activity, the number of weeks per year
and hours per week volunteered, and the type of positions held.
Although this data base has been used extensively to address
other issues, it has not been employed for investigations of volun-
teerism with the exception of this author's work.
The data set has a number of advantages: It is longitudinal
and contains detailed information on the women's personal and
family characteristics and their current and past work experi-
ences, as well as some data on their attitudes toward, for exam-
ple, work and appropriate roles for women. It also has some
disadvantages lack of information on donations of money and
goods and the limited age/sex sample but potentially these
could be overcome. Also, additional questions could be added to
future surveys of the same women, and the same questions could
be asked in surveys of the other cohorts of the National Longitu-
dinal Surveys: older men, younger men and women, and youth.~9
The general approach of this research should be oriented
toward policy. It should consider what factors motivate people to
volunteer and which of these factors could be influenced by pub-
lic policy to encourage greater participation in voluntary activi-
ties. The initial goal would be to understand whether people
decide to volunteer and then select an activity or whether people
decide to volunteer for particular activities. Past research sug-
gests that people decide to volunteer for specific activities. If
certain volunteer services are more urgently needed than others,
it is important to understand what motivates people to volunteer
for different activities in order to provide those particular serv-
ices.
A reasonable hypothesis is that although people may be ready
or willing to volunteer, they will actually volunteer only if they
can choose their own activity; "being ready and willing" may be
a necessary but not sufficient condition. As suggested by the
literature review earlier in this paper, the sufficient condition
may be a personal benefit that a volunteer derives from the activ-
ity. More work is needed to understand these motivations, work
OCR for page 42
42
CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
that uses the combined expertise of economists, sociologists, and
psychologists.
This same issue exists for donations of money and goods. The
existence of tax write-offs may make people willing to donate, but
whether or not they do donate may depend upon the existence of
organizations that meet some personal need or carry out some
personal goal or belief. Although tax gains are one part of the
compensation package, they are unlikely to comprise the entire
package.
Another research issue and an important policy area-
concerns the amount and the timing of volunteerism. Alleviating
or reducing some of society's problems, such as illiteracy and the
medical needs of the elderly, will require a long-term effort; if
volunteerism is to substitute for government expenditures and
paid workers, then it must be sustainable over time. Such pro-
longed support could be achieved by relying on the same volun-
teers for long periods of time or by using an ever-changing work
force of volunteers. But these "solutions" may in turn prove
questionable. To the extent that volunteer organizations have
high turnover among their volunteers, they will also require
ongoing training and retraining capacities. This raises an orga-
nization's costs and thus reduces the efficiency with which it
could carry out its activities. Analyses about the amount and
timing of volunteerism would indicate whether continued reli-
ance upon volunteers is an efficient way to provide services over
long periods of time.
Data cited earlier indicate that few people volunteer year after
year and that there is a broad range in the amount of time they
donate. Also, casual observation suggests a greater willingness
among people to do volunteer work for short, concentrated
periods of time (such as in an emergency or during the holiday
season) than for long, sustained periods. Or is this an illusion?
Are the people who do the work during concentrated periods of
time the same ones who volunteer over the course of a year?
Alternatively, are there people who are only willing to volunteer
at special times?
The amount of time people are willing to volunteer depends
upon how much and what type of other activities they are willing
to forgo leisure pursuits, paid employment, or work inside the
home. Similarly, for people to donate money or goods, they must
be willing to give up alternative uses of that money and those
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THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
43
goods. The amount and timing of a donation are likely to depend
upon a household's income and the demands that are placed on it
at different times of the year. For example, one could hypothesize
that, among most families, sizable donations are unlikely to be
made the day before a tax payment is due. Among low-income
families in particular, even a small contribution is less likely to
be made at Christmas or before school begins in the fall times
when there are desires and needs of one's own family to be met.
All of the discussion thus far on motivations has dealt with
research that focuses on each form of volunteering (donations of
time, money, and goods) individually. There is also a need for
research that looks at these forms collectively and asks about
their interrelationships. Do people interchange donations of
money, time, and goods, or are these forms complementary?23
One way in which this issue is important is in the context of
the increasing participation by women in the work force. Histori-
cally, the volunteer time of women has been a major part of
volunteerism in America. But what happens when women move
into paid employment? Do they continue their volunteer role to
some extent, or do they change to giving money and goods?
One research result cited earlier was that the participation of
women in the work force does not affect the likelihood that they
will volunteer for social welfare or civic activities. This finding,
which takes a cross-sectional view, is somewhat surprising; it
goes against conventional wisdom. A next step would be to see if
the finding holds in longitudinal analyses as well.
Another study might investigate the proposition an implica-
tion of conventional wisdom about the impact of the movement of
women into the work force that a reduction in their volunteer
time has negative consequences for volunteerism in general. Effi-
ciency considerations suggest that a switch from donations of
time (or goods) to greater donations of money actually may be
preferable. Organizations can use money in any way (to buy sta-
tionery, pay workers, or purchase food, for instance) depending
upon which resources are scarcer than others. In general,
donated goods and time do not have this flexibility. Although an
excess supply of goods can be sold to obtain money, this involves a
transaction cost. Also, volunteers may not provide a stable work
force (as mentioned earlier), and they may only be willing to
undertake the more attractive tasks, leaving less desirable but
still necessary ones unfinished.
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CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
The extent to which people interchange donations of time,
money, and goods depends in part upon how volunteering time is
viewed. If it is viewed as another form of work, a fair amount of
substitution (donating money or goods rather than time) is likely
to occur as women enter the labor force. Less substitution may
occur if the volunteerism is viewed as a way of using leisure
time.
Complicating the matter further, different volunteer activities
may be viewed differently. High-status activities, such as head-
ing a charity ball, may be considered leisure; lower-status activi-
ties, such as canvassing for the Heart Fund, may be more akin to
work. This and previous discussions have focused on donations to
formal volunteer organizations. There is evidence that partici-
pating in formal volunteer groups is largely a middle- and upper-
ciass phenomenon. Does this imply that lower-income people are
less likely to volunteer? Or do they volunteer more in casual,
unstructured ways, such as helping friends and relatives or
working for pay for formal volunteer groups?
In a more general vein, why do people help other people in
informal ways? Are the reasons similar to those that lead people
to volunteer in structured settings? A change in volunteerism
from informal to formal settings may not have a significant
impact on the amount of volunteerism if the same reasons hold. If
the reasons differ, however, then a movement to more formal
ways of volunteering may reduce the amount of volunteerism
that occurs. It would be important to understand how society
could compensate for such a decline.
One way of handling this question is to look to history. In the
past many activities were carried out on an informal, sometimes
ad hoc, basis. Some of these same activities lending books and
putting out fires, for example-are now handled within formal,
organized systems (although informal volunteering is still with
us; especially in times of emergency, people continue to band
together, almost as a mutual insurance policy). Much of the past
movement from informal to formal ways of carrying out activi-
ties may have been a response to increasing population densities
and technological sophistication. Within a complex society there
may be certain classes of problems that are more efficiently han-
dIed by formal, organized structures. Learning about these
classes of problems in the context of historical changes in formal
and informal volunteerism would help us understand more about
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THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
45
the general direction volunteerism generally is likely to take in
the future.
The Role of the Voluntary Sector
The research cited in this paper and the two previous sections
on research questions have dealt with individuals and the cir-
cumstances under which they may volunteer. An equally impor-
tant area for future work is the volunteer organization: the way
it operates, the efficiency of its operations, and its organizational
capacity. Volunteer organizations presumably have no profit
motive; how then do they measure their own performances? And
how do these measures affect their efficiency, that is, the way in
which they distribute their own scarce resources? There is evi-
dence that at least some volunteer organizations are notoriously
inefficient and that only a small portion of the donations they
receive are ever seen by the intended beneficiaries.
Further, from a historical perspective, how flexible have volun-
tary organizations been in adapting to changing social needs and
circumstances? For example, to what extent have they adapted to
the increasing participation of women in the work force? One
response of these organizations might be to continue to rely on
women who are not employed, an ever-shrinking pool. Another
r~nnnse alight be to alter the timing of volunteering so that
people could both work and volunteer.
A final broad area of research is the way in which the volun-
tary sector as a whole operates and the role it plays in the total
economy.24 On the one hand are social needs, and on the other
freedom of choice among people to volunteer however they wish.
It may be possible to rely upon these volunteers only for some
social goals; in other areas, government expenditures and paid
workers may be necessary.
Earlier sections of this paper suggest that the voluntary sector
comprises thousands of individuals, all making separate deci-
sions: whether or not to volunteer in the first place, what to
volunteer for, what form the volunteerism should take, how
much to do, and when to participate. This characterization sug-
gests that the voluntary sector could be viewed as a "market for
volunteerism." As in any market, there are people who supply
the activity the volunteers-and there are people who demand
it the beneficiaries of the volunteerism.
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CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
The key difference between this market and others, however, is
that there is no pricing system in the volunteerism market. In
other markets, prices serve a critical function; they determine
the relative amount of each good that is both supplied and
demanded. When high prices occur, more goods are supplied than
may be demanded; in response, the supply declines and prices
fall until an equilibrium price and quantity are established
between those who demand goods and those who supply them.
Because there is no mechanism equivalent to a price system for
regulating supply and demand within the voluntary sector, it is
difficult to determine whether too little or too much of an activity
is being supplied relative to demand (e.g., Are too many or too
few Girl Scout cookies being solder. The lack of a price system
would not matter if resources were limitless. But in~the volun-
tary sector, as elsewhere in the economy, resources are scarce and
must somehow be allocated among competing uses.
It is quite probable that the suppliers of volunteerism do not
systematically offer the range of goods and services that benef~-
ciaries of volunteerism would like to be offered. And there are
some goods that may not be produced if supply decisions are left
solely to the workings of a marketplace. The beneficiaries of
volunteerism must have a way of registering their demand so
that a supply can be forthcoming. Normally, to demand a good
requires having command over some resource (such as money)
that can be traded; but in the case of the volunteerism market,
the beneficiaries have no easy way of registering their demand.
For example, we only know about the demand for food and shel-
ter by the lines that form outside churches and other charitable
organizations. Is this a sufficient measure of the demand for
these services?
The volunteerism market may not generate the range of
desired goods and services for another reason as well. As in other
cases, it is likely that there are differences between the services
that people, as individuals, are willing to supply themselves and
those that they believe should be supplied as part of their social
responsibility. For example, families may not be willing to house
indigent persons themselves, but taken together they may wish
such housing to be supplied. Identifying areas in which discrep-
ancies such as this occur would suggest where governments could
appropriately target their resources.
In sum, the supply of volunteerism, the demand for it, and the
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THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
47
way in which voluntary contributions are allocated among com-
peting social goals should be modeled both conceptually and
empirically. Also, an understanding of the nature and extent of
the differences between individually supplied and socially
demanded services is a critical policy area. Because governments
cannot solve all social ills, it is important to know where, and to
what extent, they can rely upon the voluntary contributions of
Americans.
CONCLUSIONS
Major changes are occurring within the American economy,
changes that require increased volunteer activity. As a conse-
quence of the reduction in expenditures of all levels of govern-
ment, increasing demands are being placed on the voluntary sec-
tor to meet both immediate and long-term social needs.
Furthermore, the aging of the population will lead to an increas-
ing need for health care and other volunteer services for the
elderly. The ways in which volunteers and volunteer organiza-
tions can, and will, respond to these changes are not really
known. (For example, there is an expectation-or perhaps more
accurately, a hope that older, retired people will become a major
source of volunteers. It may well be, however, that many individ-
uals will not be eager to volunteer. Particularly if the retirement
age continues to increase, they may prefer instead to relax and
enjoy themselves after a lifetime of work.) Currently, little is
understood about the extent and nature of volunteerism: the rea-
sons why people volunteer, how they volunteer, and for what kind
of activities they volunteer. Because of this information gap, it is
not possible to suggest either ways to stimulate volunteerism in
general or areas in which it is most likely to arise on its own.
It is also not quite clear whether an increase in volunteerism
would be the most efficient way to supply needed services. How
the voluntary sector allocates its own scarce resources remains
obscure. We also do not know the extent to which the sector's
activities do, or could, correspond to those that society at large
considers valuable enough to undertake.
Today volunteerism is being promoted to meet social needs, a
view that is based on assumptions about ways in which individ-
uals could, or should, productively use their time. This view is
also based on assumptions about the efficiency of the private
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CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
voluntary sector as compared to the government sector in provid-
ing needed social services. It remains to be determined, however,
whether people wish to use their time volunteering and whether
volunteering is the most efficient means of achieving social
goals.
* * *
Burkhard von Rabenau and Sara B. Toye provided helpful comments and
suggestions on earlier drafts. The views expressed here are not necessarily
those of the National Commission for Employment Policy or of the National
Academy of Sciences and, of course, any errors are the author's.
NOTES
1. Gallup Organization, Inc., Americans Volunteer. Survey for Independent Sector
(Princeton, N.J., June 1981).
2. ACTION, Americans Volunteer; 1974 (Washington, D.C.: Independent Sector
and the Gallup Organization, Inc., February 1975).
3. Carol L. Jusenius, Retirement and Older Americans' Participation in Volunteer
Activities (Washington, D.C.: National Commission for Employment Policy, June
1983).
4. Ibid.
5. For a list of many of the ways in which people volunteer, see Gallup
Organization, Americans Volunteer:
6. Gallup Organization, Americans Volunteer:
7. Jusenius, Retirement and Older Americans' Participation
8. Kenneth Boulding, "Notes on a Theory of Philanthropy," in Frank Dickinson,
ea., Philanthropy and Public Policy (New York: National Bureau of Economic
Research, 1962).
9. Ibid., pp.57,61.
10. Gary S. Becker, "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," Journal of Political Economy
82, no. 3 (April 1974): S11-S26.
11. Marnie Mueller, "The Economic Determinants of Volunteer Work by Women,"
Signs: Journal of Women and Society 1, no. 4 (Winter 1975): 325-338; and Paul L.
Menchik and Burton A. Weisbrod, "Government Crowding Out and Contributions of
Time-Or Why do People Work for Free?" Unpublished paper. Dec. 8,1982.
12. Mueller, "The Economic Determinants."
13. Other independent variables included husband's income, woman's current or
last wage in the job market, youthfulness and number of children in the household,
population size of the woman's place of residence, and woman's religion (Catholic,
Protestant, Jew, or all other). The results of studies of these other independent
variables indicated that women who identify with a religion and live in rural areas
are likely to do more volunteer work than those who do not identify with a religion
and live in urban areas.
14. Mueller, "The Economic Determinants," p. 334.
15. Menchik and Weisbrod, "Government Crowding Out," p.5.
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THE ECONOMICS OF VOLUNTEERISM: A REVIEW
49
16. Ibid., p. 11. Other independent variables included measures of the population
size of the person's place of residence; presence and age of children; the individual's
age, sex, marital status, and income from other sources (such as interest and
dividends); a measure of the amount of time the individual has spent helping friends
and neighbors; and background characteristics of the individual (such as the parents'
regular attendance at religious services, father's education, and regularity of
parents' donations to charitable and religious organizations).
The results of the study indicated that more hours of volunteerism are undertaken
by working people who live in larger rather than smaller cities, who are younger, and
who give more help to friends and neighbors. For the area of natural resources
specifically, working people with children in the family volunteer more hours than
people without children; they volunteer fewer hours than those without children in
the areas of education (all levels) and welfare.
17. Jusenius, Retirement and Older Americans' Participation.
18. Within this setting, household members' time can be conceptually divided into
different activities. Some time is spent working to produce a household output of
goods and services. This work is done both in the home and in the job market. For
work done in the home, the compensation is the goods produced. For work done in the
job market, the compensation is income, which can be used to buy goods and services
in the market or to "buy time" to spend in activities other than work in the job
market. For example, the income of one family member may be used to purchase
household necessities as well as the time of a second family member so that he or she
can be at home (taking care of children or taking early retirement).
Another part of household time is spent in leisure, the time devoted to consuming
(or enjoying) the previously produced goods and services. More generally, leisure is
time not working.
The statements above are a nontechnical description of the theory of the
household's allocation of time. For technical versions, see Gary S. Becker, "A Theory
of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy 81, no. 4 (July/Au". 1973):
813-846; and Becker, "A Theory of Marriage: Part II."
19. The National Longitudinal Surveys sampled five separate cohorts: (1) men who
were 45 to 59 years of age in 1966, (2) women who were 30 to 44 years of age in 1967,
(3) young men aged 14 to 24 in 1966, (4) young women aged 14 to 24 in 1968, and (5)
men and women aged 14 to 21 in 1979. In the first four cohorts blacks were
oversampled so that they could be studied separately; there is about 15 years' worth
of data for these groups. In the fifth cohort, "youth," whites from low-income
households, blacks, and Hispanics were oversampled and persons in the military
were included; these groups were most recently surveyed in 1982. For additional
information, see the Center for Human Resource Research, The National
Longitudinal Surveys Handbook' 1982 (Columbus, Ohio: Center for Human Resource
Research).
20. Independent variables included the individual's race, ethnicity (Latin or other
origin), health status, employment status, place of residence and unemployment rate
of that area, income from assets, and whether or not there were children in the
household. For the women, an additional variable measured past participation in
volunteer activities.
21. Menchik and Weisbrod, "Government Crowding Out."
22. This view was confirmed by program operators participating in a panel
discussion entitled "Volunteerism: Can It Work in Your Community?" The panel was
part of the 1982 Congress of Cities Exposition at Los Angeles, Nov.27-Dec.2, 1982.
23. For a further discussion of this issue, see, for example, James N. Morgan,
Richard F. Dye, and Judith H. Hybels, "Results from Two National Surveys of
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CAROL JUSENIUS ROMERO
Philanthropic Activity," in Research Papers, Volume I: History, Trends and Current
Magnitudes, sponsored by the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1977).
24. For another way of conceptualizing the voluntary sector, the reader may wish
to see Burton A. Weisbrod and Stephen H. Long, "The Size of the Voluntary Nonprofit
Sector: Concepts and Measures," in Research Papers. Also, for empirical estimates of
the size of the voluntary sector, see the Weisbrod and Long paper, others in that
volume, and Burton A. Weisbrod, "Assets and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector,"
Public Finance Quarterly 10, no. 4 (Oct. 1982): 403-426.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
volunteer activities
