The Role of Volunteers in German Refugee Crisis and Their
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SPECIAL Chang Woon Nam and Peter Steinhoff High-quality local and regional data on volun- teer activities in refugee matters is not yet available in Germany. For this reason, our empirical research The Role of Volun- adopts the statistics obtained by an online survey conducted among the volunteers in the district of teers in German Erding, near Munich. In 2015–2016 Erding was one of the most important initial reception and further dis- Refugee Crisis and tribution centers of refugees who entered Germany. Chang Woon Nam The data was collected based on a questionnaire ifo Institute and (with 14 questions) within the period from 15 Novem- University of Applied Their Contribution ber 2016 to 15 December 2016. According to the Dis- Management Ismaning trict Office of Erding, the Agency for Work, and the to Local Govern- Job Center, the total number of volunteers in this area reached around 450 in December 2016. Among ment Expenditure them 130 volunteers took part in the survey. Two major questions included in the survey are related to (1) the types of activities and services which the In September 2015, Germany implemented a ‘wel- volunteers in the district of Erding provided; and coming’ open-door policy toward the refugees who (2) the scope of time and resources the volunteers made their way into Europe. However, images of invested in their commitment to helping refugees. the refugee crisis overwhelmed the country soon Peter Steinhoff when approximately 1 million people came to it in SOME BASIC THEORETICAL BACKGROUND University of Applied 2015‒2016, and many Germans started to question Management Ismaning the optimism of the Merkel administration’s ‘Wir Volunteerism has grown steadily in most developed schaffen das’ (Sola 2018; Jäckle and König 2017). countries during the past decades and is becoming Refugees have disproportionately settled in large increasingly more complex at the same time. One of German municipalities and cities, due also to bet- the crucial factors in its expansion is the scheme of ter job prospects and social diaspora connections collective finance and private provision of key wel- provided there. Eventually these communities fare state services, since “volunteers accept to do ‒ rather than the national government ‒ were unpaid work which is performed free of cost in order expected to solve problems related to accommo- to benefit the community” (Sajardo and Serra 2011, dation and integration of new arrivals, including: 873). The theoretical explanation on volunteerism as “how to house, educate, train, and integrate indi- a substitute for governments’ declining role in pro- viduals from different cultures, with varied educa- viding social services is primarily based on the con- tion levels, who often need emergency health care ventional crowding-out theory of voluntary provision and special services” (Katz et al. 2016, 1). Large num- of public goods (Duncan 2004; Freise 2017), combined bers of individual volunteers have been engaged in with a warm-glow philanthropist consumption model a wide range of unpaid activities, from distributing (Romano and Yildirim 2001). food and medical aid to waiting for refugees in front The former theory suggests that if people are of the national registration authority, to helping concerned with the total amount of public service out at refugee shelters, teaching German, and long- offered, they will treat government spending on such term integration assistance. Many of them have also goods and services as substitutes for their own dona- been the ‘spontaneous unaffiliated volunteers’ who tions to the provision of similar services. Following are willing to assist community members and civil this logic, Warr (1983) and Roberts (1987) argue that servants, but lack consistent training (Twigg and a complete crowding-out is likely to occur (e.g., one Mosel 2017). dollar of government subsidies will replace one dol- Compared to the previous references concen- lar of donations), if donors are pure altruists – i.e., trated on volunteerism in religion, health, environ- their only concern is the total amount of public goods ment, and school-related areas (Maki and Snyder available (Dehne et al. 2008). The latter warm-glow 2015), our study tackles a more specific volunteering utility specification additionally introduces a donor’s aspect revealed in the German refugee crisis. Fol- personal satisfaction derived from her own contribu- lowing the investigations of general characteristics tion into the utility function, so that she gets utility of the involved volunteers (gender, age, and income not only from the total provision of public goods but structure; donation types; time requirements), this also from her own contribution. In this context cit- paper attempts to calculate the monthly personnel izens’ voluntary and charitable activities appear to and material costs as the opportunity costs of vol- be stimulated by the ‘intrinsic motivations’ charac- unteering, which appear to relieve the local govern- terized by a ‘prosocial disposition’ toward helping ment financial bottleneck thanks to such volunteers’ others and communities (Clary et al. 1996; Banuri commitment. and Keefer 2016). In this case government spending CESifo Forum 3 / 2019 September Volume 20 25 SPECIAL on public goods does not necessarily crowd out pri- SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF REFUGEES, COST vate donations one for one, although some degree of ALLOCATION AMONG DIFFERENT GOVERNMENT crowding-out appears to be still possible (Simmons TIERS, AND THE ROLE OF VOLUNTEERS and Emanuele 2004). These two theories deliver some basic explanations why governments tend to In 2015, Germany took in 890,000 refugees and stimulate volunteerism, which can consequently received more than 476,000 formal applications lead to savings in government expenditure.1 for political asylum. By 2016, however, its govern- Volunteering is often perceived as donations of ment reimplemented the border controls, whereby, time or labor, but it can also be donations of money thanks to the agreement made between the EU and or goods. Despite the problems related to the poor Turkey in March 2016, Greece was allowed to send availability of data, valuing volunteer time has tra- back ‘irregular migrants’ to Turkey, which has made ditionally been of interest in academic research the movement of refugees from the Middle East to (Gaskin 1999; Mook et al. 2005), whereas the mon- Western Europe more difficult. As a consequence, etary value of latter types of donation can be more the total number of refugees arriving in Germany easily obtained. Repeatedly, the calculation of the in 2016 decreased to 280,000 (Sola 2018). Overall, economic value of volunteering via converting the such an inflow of the refugees within a short time value of volunteering time into monetary terms is not period has led to an increase in German population only a useful device for measuring the contribution of more than 1 percent, driven by the arrival of young made by volunteers to society (Knapp 1990), but also men particularly from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. emphasizes that voluntary work can play a significant Approximately 65 percent of all asylum seekers role for the local and national governments’ expendi- between 2015 and 2017 were male; around 50 per- ture behavior and budgetary decision-making. cent were below the age of 24, and about a quarter It is not an easy task, but several methods have of all refugees were children under 15 (Trines 2017). been applied to measure a monetary value of the As soon as asylum seekers register when they output benefits from the time spent in voluntary arrive in Germany, they are distributed to the in work. A possible option is calculating the time spent dividual federal states (Länder) using the Königstei in an unpaid activity at a ‘comparable’ market wage. ner quotas, of which annual calculation is based on The wage chosen is either (1) the ‘opportunity cost’ the states’ tax revenue (rated at two-thirds) and pop- of the time the persons involved in unpaid work ulation (with a third share assessed). The difference could have obtained if they had spent the time in in surface area among the states is neglected in this paid work; or (2) the ‘specialist wage’ that would be context – that is the reason why refugee accommoda- needed to pay a specialist from the market to carry tion is particularly difficult in the city-states of Ber- out her specific activity; or (3) the so-called ‘general- lin and Hamburg (Geis and Orth 2016). For the year ist wage’ that a general volunteer would be paid to do 2015, the highest Königsteiner distribution quota the unpaid work. The ‘net’ opportunity cost widely amounted to 21.24 percent for North-Rhine-West- measures a volunteer’s work at the after-tax wage phalia, followed by 15.33 percent for Bavaria, rate, less work-related expenses, plus income by 12.97 percent for Baden-Wurttemberg, 9.36 percent way of employer cost of superannuation and fringe for Lower Saxony, 7.32 percent for Hesse, 5.10 per- benefits (Ironmonger 2008). Yet such calculations cent for Saxony, 5.05 percent for Berlin, etc. suffer from some weaknesses, since they ignore Even within the respective states, a separate dis- “that because [many] volunteers do not engage in tribution mechanism exists. In Bavaria, for example, any paid work, either because they are [retired] or the geographic allocation of refugees occurs based because they have never been part of [active working on the ratio to the population of Bavaria, firstly to population, e.g., students or unpaid houseworkers], the administrative districts (Regierungsbezirke), and there is [hardly any suitable market] monetary cost then further on to the districts (Landkreise) as well of opportunity. [Secondly,] the value that each vol- as municipalities and cities (Geis and Orth 2016). unteer places on her free time is subjective, is hard Regarding the different shares among the admin- to compare from one individual to another” (Sajardo istrative districts in Bavaria, Upper Bavaria is given and Serra 2011, 881).