Unpaid work of love: defining the work–leisure axis of volunteering

Abstract

The definition of volunteering as unpaid work has been around far longer than that of volunteering as leisure. The former, which is the more widely used of the two, seems at first blush to be incompatible on several accounts with the latter. And in fact there are some incompatibilities, which however, can be reconciled in an overarching definition incorporating both. This article shows that, among its other defining features, volunteering is both unpaid work and attractive leisure. No attempt is made to provide a full definition of volunteering, an impossibility given the present incomplete state of research on this question. Rather the aim is more modest: to show how work and leisure, seen as falling along a single complex axis, can be combined to form part of a full definition thereby giving us a deeper understanding of their relationship.

Keywords:

• leisure
• volunteerism

Notes

1. Definitions of leisure abound. The one presented here fits the argument being made in this paper. For a review of a number of the others see, for example, Kelly (1990, pp. 16–23).