Are Americans giving up on volunteering?

Social justice news
December 2001

Are Americans giving up on volunteering?
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Are Americans giving up on volunteering?
Between 1974 and 1989, Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 were 5 percent less likely to volunteer, and the decline in volunteering was twice as large among women as men, a recent study has shown. Besides reporting on volunteering, the study, conducted by Dora L. Costa of MIT and Matthew E. Kahn of Tufts University, explored other measures of "social capital"—society-enhancing activities such as joining membership organizations and visiting friends and relatives; the former showed larger declines than those for volunteering, while the latter dropped even more precipitously.

The study attributes these declines in social capital primarily to rising income inequality-people are less likely to reach out to those whose incomes are significantly different than their own-but growing ethnic diversity and the increasing participation of women in the workforce are also contributing factors, with women having less time for voluntary activities.

In a separate poll taken after September's terrorist attacks, Independent Sector, an organization of charities and foundations, found that 44 percent of Americans reported they volunteered, 60 percent of whom said they did so at least monthly. While 42 percent of men polled said they volunteered, 46 percent of women reported volunteering.—Joel Schorn

A summary of the Independent Sector survey can be found at www.independentsector.org. For Costa and Kahn's technical paper, visit web.mit.edu/costa/www/papers.html.

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