Giving Behaviours and Social Cohesion

Social cohesion and volunteering: Correlates, causes, and challenges.

“…However, this statistic had a relatively strong population-weighted correlation with other research measuring true forms of volunteering (r = .58 with data from the 2018 Social Capital Project; Joint Economic Committee-Republicans, 2018). In the United Kingdom, higher generalized levels of giving, including volunteering, were associated with increased interpersonal trust in their neighborhood and lower deprivation (Zischka, 2019), both factors encapsulated by social cohesion (Schiefer & van der Noll, 2017). Lalot et al (2022) also found volunteer engagement was positively associated with both horizontal cohesion (measured as sense of neighborliness) and vertical cohesion (measured as trust in government).…”

“…Whereas social cohesion and volunteering engagement do seem to be related, research from the United States and United Kingdom suggests social cohesion and its constituent factors are not linearly or significantly related to volunteering intensity (Johnson et al, 2018;Latham & Clarke, 2018;Zischka, 2019). One potential explanation for this is that individuals who volunteer at particularly high intensities may do so as a substitute for formal employment.…”

“…In this section, we discuss cross-sectional researchbased evidence for the association between social cohesion and volunteering. We draw from five academic sources containing correlational, survey-based data for the association between the two; two primary sources (Chetty et al, 2022;Johnson et al, 2018) and one secondary source (Latham & Clarke, 2018) arising from the search, as well as two additional sources (Lalot et al, 2022;Zischka, 2019) outside of our search but previously known to the authors.…”

“…There are some important caveats regarding evidence for the relationship between social capital and volunteering, raised in three academics (Jones & Heley, 2016;Tucker & Gearhart, 2022;Zischka, 2019) and one gray (Gilbertson & Manning, 2006) source of cross-sectional evidence. These highlight contingencies, confounds, and even possible negative effects of social capital on volunteering.…”

“…An additional four secondary academic sources (Coote, 2011;Kay & Bradbury, 2009;R. D. Putnam, 2000;Scott, 2011) and two aforementioned sources outside of the review (Hayton & Blundell, 2021;Zischka, 2019) are also discussed here, along with one source recommended by the advisory board of a partnering charity (NCVO, 2021).…”