A Cross-Cultural Examination of Student Volunteering: Is It All About Résumé Building?

Abstract

This research takes the utilitarian view of volunteering as a starting point; for a student population we posit that volunteering is motivated for career enhancing and job prospects. In those countries where volunteering signals positive characteristics of students and helps advance their careers, we hypothesize that their volunteer participation will be higher. Furthermore, regardless of the signaling value of volunteering, those students who volunteer for utilitarian reasons will be more likely to volunteer but will exhibit less timeintensive volunteering. Using survey data from 12 countries (n=9,482) we examine our hypotheses related to motivations to volunteer, volunteer participation, and country differences. Findings suggest that students

Young People Engaging in Volunteering: Questioning a Generational Trend in an Individualized Society

“…These findings are in tune with other studies on youth volunteering which claim that young people are likely to volunteer mainly for their own personal interest, expecting to gain work experience and skills that may be useful for their curriculum and future career [17,22,31,[37][38][39][40]. Such motives can be also a response to the rhetoric of the lifelong learning paradigm that emphasizes the importance for citizens to continuously update and enhance their skills, in order to quickly respond and adjust to fast changing labour market.…”

“…Thus, as other studies on youth volunteering suggest [37,40], volunteering is valued by young people because it allows the acquisition of social and cultural capital which can be converted into material capital. On the one hand, the concept of social capital refers to the "resource to action" acquired through social relationships and interactions between individuals [66].…”

“…According to this perspective, young people are more likely to get involved in volunteering in order to gain new skills that may lead them to new or better employment opportunities [17,22,31,[37][38][39][40]. For instance, Handy and other colleagues [37] argue that in the United States and Canada, where volunteering represents a strong positive signal for employers, younger generations, especially the career-oriented volunteers, are more inclined to volunteer. They argue that in those countries there is a new type of volunteering among higher education students, which can be termed "career-related résumé-building volunteering".…”

Warm and Supportive Parenting Can Discourage Offspring’s Civic Engagement in the Transition to Adulthood

“…Civic engagement in Finland, albeit widespread, appears to be more a matter of personal choice than a universally valued experience that clearly improves one's labor market chances (cf. Handy et al 2010). …”

State and Perspectives of Studying of Psychological Determinants of Volunteer Activities

“…В этой связи высказываются предположения, что, скорее всего, они принадлежат к общественным объединениям, а также другим видам вторичных групп, и по этой причине чаще привлекаются к волонтерской работе [22, p. 1474]. Опираясь на исследования личности, можно также предположить, что общительные и экстравертные люди в большей степени в состоянии справиться с большим количеством неудобных социальных ситуаций, в которые волонтеры часто попадают, тогда как люди, страдающие от социальной фобии или хронической (но не клинически серьезной) социальной тревожности, будут менее склонны к волонтерству [15].…”