Is Volunteering Work, Prosocial Behavior, or Leisure? An Empirical Study Susan M. Chambré, City University of New York, Baruch College [email protected] Christopher J. Einolf, DePaul University, School for Public Service Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2008 American Sociological Association Meeting, the 2008 Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Meeting and a School of Public Affairs Faculty Seminar at Baruch College. Executive Summary Three paradigms of volunteerism are evident in the literature. Volunteering is described as ‘work,’ as a prosocial activity, and a leisure activity. This paper tests the validity of each of these models in a longitudinal analysis of nationally representative survey data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) dataset. The data provided weak support for volunteering as work, but support was found for volunteering as prosocial behavior and volunteering as a leisure activity. The strongest results, however, related to the continuity of volunteering over time, and these results provide support for socioemotional selectivity and role identity theories of volunteering. 2 Introduction Volunteering – defined as freely choosing to work without payment for a community, charitable or religious organization – would appear to be a fairly straightforward activity. However, the traditional definition no longer fully captures the diverse ways that the term ‘volunteering’ is used in the U.S.i Over the last several decades, the contexts in which unpaid work occurs have changed; volunteering is not always unpaid; its motivations, dimensions and consequences are far more complex than altruism (often likened to volunteering); and it is not always truly voluntary. The context of volunteer work is quite broad. Numerous volunteers work for government agencies. A growing army of volunteers, labeled ‘interns,’ work for corporations. Calling them interns, rather than volunteers, reframes their role. Many volunteers receive stipends or another form of ‘payment’ such as tuition reimbursement which is done in Americorps. Recently, nonprofit organizations and government agencies have begun to recruit retirees to work for wages below the market value of their labor, defined as salaries, not stipends, leading to the creation of what would seem to be an oxymoron: paid volunteer work (Deutsch, 2007). Considerable research documents that volunteering is often not so freely chosen; instead it is often done in response to the expectations and even the demands of employers, family and friends (Houghland & Shepard, 1985). Just as its nature has become increasingly complex, the motivations and determinants of volunteering are varied (Ross, 1954; Wilensky, 1961a, 1961b; Wilson, 2000). People volunteer in a broad array of settings and do many different types of ‘work.’ They become involved for a host of altruistic, religious, social and career-related reasons. What is perhaps most widely accepted idea about volunteering is that it is ‘work.’ Whether totally unpaid or compensated at an amount below its market value (often as a stipend to underwrite work expenses), volunteering is likened to a ‘job’ and a sequence of volunteer involvements, according to Arlene Kaplan Daniels (1988), can operate as a ‘career’ albeit an ‘invisible’ one. Despite the varied views on the precise nature of volunteering, many scholars and volunteer coordinators conceptualize volunteering as ‘work.’ This is especially true when the volunteer patterns of older people, particularly retired persons, are considered. What is the connection between employment and volunteering? Is volunteering ‘work’ or something much more varied? A number of studies have documented the link between volunteer ‘work’ and paid work (Wilson & Musick, 1997a). One of the strongest influences on patterns of volunteer participation is human capital, which also influences access to employment. Better educated people more often volunteer; and individuals with limited job skills are less often involved in volunteering than managers and professionals. People with higher levels of human capital may step forward to volunteer because they have had past success in efforts to become involved, but also because organizations tend to reach out more often or are more receptive to better educated and more highly skilled volunteers (Musick & Wilson, 2008). 3 This paper synthesizes recent research on volunteering. It presents three paradigms of volunteerism: as work, as prosocial behavior, and as a leisure activity. After describing each paradigm, it draws on empirical data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) survey to test the adequacy of each model in predicting volunteerism by elders. Older persons are an ideal group for understanding the relationship between work and volunteering. First, when they volunteer they are less likely to be motivated by the child and family related reasons that lead to volunteering among younger people. In that sense, then, their involvement might be more altruistic, and less constrained by social expectations, since a great deal of volunteering earlier in the life cycle involves ‘giving back’ or contributing to organizations and activities that benefit an individual and the members of his or her family. Second, older people are a more varied group in terms of their employment status. Unlike younger people, for whom long term unemployment might be due to other obligations like family commitments, or low levels of human capital making them undesirable employees, this age group includes individuals with varied levels of human capital who are working full time, working part-time, retired and unemployed. The paper concludes that there is little support for the idea that volunteering is a work substitute in later life. More support is found for models that describe volunteering as prosocial behavior or active, meaningful leisure. However, none of these three models is highly predictive by itself. We therefore developed another model which combines elements of the three paradigms, and added a fourth element, the continuity of volunteering over time. As continuity predicts volunteering better than the other three models combined, we explore the meaning of this finding from the standpoint of socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, 1992) and role identity theory (Lee, Piliavin, & Call, 1999). Review of the Literature Three paradigms of volunteering are evident in the empirical, theoretical and management discussions of volunteerism. The first is that volunteering is ‘work.’ Both the activities themselves are work, and various occupational characteristics influence the propensity to volunteer. A second literature describes volunteering as one type of prosocial behavior, a form of civic and political engagement, or evidence of individuals’ connection to social networks and voluntary associations that involve altruism and reciprocity. A third strand of research focuses on how volunteering reflects lifestyle and taste, and considers volunteering to be one facet of an active and engaged lifestyle. Volunteering as Work While the coupling of ‘volunteer’ with the concept of ‘work’ is relatively recent (Karl, 1984), in the public mind and in the views of many scholars, 4 volunteering is ‘work.’ Tilly and Tilly (1998), for example, classify it as one of four types of work along with paid labor in the formal economy, work in the informal economy, and household labor. Wilson and Musick (1997a: 266) “assume that volunteering is work, much like any other kind of work.” The clearest way that volunteering is ‘work’ is that it involves the donation of time which has a monetary value and would require paying a staff member were the tasks not done by a volunteer. In 2008, the value of the average volunteer’s time was $20.25 per hour (Independent Sector, 2008). Although individual organizations tend not to publicize the value of the time donated by volunteers, the aggregate value for the nonprofit sector as a whole has been calculated and widely publicized. The most recent national estimate, for 2001, was $239 billion, the equivalent of more than 9 million full-time employees (Independent Sector, 2001). Even though volunteering has an economic value, it is not clear how economic factors influence the decision to work for free. Since there is a trade off between time spent working for pay and time spent working for free, then people with lower wages would be expected to volunteer more than people who earn higher wages. This is generally not the case. Freeman (1997:S141) points out that “…standard labor supply substitution behavior, which predicts that people will volunteer less when the opportunity cost of time (wages) is high – explains only a minor part of differences in volunteer activity among individuals with similar demographic characteristics.” Several recent surveys point to important exceptions. Retirement more often leads to beginning to volunteer for people with lower preretirement incomes than for those whose incomes were higher while they were working (Moen & Fields, 2002). There is also a different calculus for people who earn a salary in contrast to those earning an hourly wage. DeVoe and Pfeffer (2007:783), using a combination of survey and experimental methods, found that “being paid by the hour almost inevitably makes salient an economic frame for the evaluation of time. Being compensated on an hourly basis predisposes people to assess how they spend their time in terms of the monetary