Motivations and benefits of formal volunteering

The objective of the research presented in this thesis is to contribute to the literature on the individual benefits and motivations of volunteering. Without being able to use market signals, in the form of higher wages, understanding individual benefits and motivations is crucial for governments and voluntary organisations to design programs to encourage new and retain existing volunteers. There are three major contributions to the literature, each made using large-scale nationally representative unit record databases and microeconometric techniques. The first major contribution is to provide evidence for the first time that volunteering while at school helps smooth the transition to work for youth that do not go on to higher education. A key finding is that unobserved individual characteristics that lead youth to volunteer also affect their chances of finding work in their first year after school. It is shown that failure to take into account unobserved characteristics of youth that volunteer, such as altruism, leads to an underestimate of the employment benefits from volunteering. The second major contribution is to provide evidence that volunteering, through improved social support, improves life satisfaction. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the life satisfaction benefits are greatest for those on the margins of society: those from disadvantaged communities who report having few friends. A possible explanation for this association is that volunteering, by providing social support, helps people from poor areas cope with the stresses of living in these areas. The third major contribution is to show that people are motivated to volunteer for shortterm employment benefits. While others have shown that volunteering can lead to long-term labour market benefits, none have previously found evidence that such benefits motivate people to volunteer. This result implies that people volunteer for extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. These findings have implications for the design of programs to encourage volunteering. For example, labour market benefits and motivations suggests that programs designed to improve links between voluntary organisations and schools or employment agencies may help encourage greater participation.