Surfing to help? An empirical analysis of Internet use and volunteering in 27 European societies

ABSTRACT

With the spread of the Internet, people are more connected than ever before. Against this background, we evaluate the link between Internet use and volunteering as a rather unexplored aspect of social life. Comparing 27 European societies and using data from the Eurobarometer, we show that Internet use is positively related to the probability of undertaking unpaid work in most voluntary organizations. However, our main result has to be qualified with respect to group-specific effects. First, Internet use seems to elevate less educated and unemployed peoples’ propensity to volunteer. Thus, using Internet technologies may trigger helping behavior in social strata, where it is less likely to occur. Second, the positive relationship between Internet use and volunteering is stronger for older adults who are more likely to volunteer when they use the Internet. Third, the positive link between Internet use and volunteering is stronger for citizens living in rural areas than for urban residents.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet
• volunteering
• voluntary organizations
• European Union
• comparative analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Maximilian Filsinger, MA, is a PhD candidate at the Institue of Political Science at the University of Bern. His research interests centres on the effects of digitalisation in social interactions, social capital as well as populism and populist attitudes.

Kathrin Ackermann is an assistant professor at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University. Before, she has been a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at Goethe University, Frankfurt and a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Early Postdoc. Mobility Fellow at the University of Amsterdam. She has received her PhD in political science from the University of Bern. Her research on political psychology, political behavior, and social participation has been published, among others, in Political Psychology, Political Behavior, West European Politics, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and New Media & Society.

Markus Freitag is Professor of Political Sociology at the Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, Switzerland. He has published on trust, social capital, direct democracy, comparative public policy, voter participation, political attitudes, civil war, and personality.

ORCID

Maximilian Filsinger http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6583-8301

Kathrin Ackermann http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8697-0184

Notes

1 For a notable exception, comparing 13 countries see: Amichai-Hamburger and Hayat (2011).

2 We tested whether the other control variables function as moderators, yet these are not significant. Results are available on request.

3 The multi-stage random probability sampling design included the following steps. First, primary sampling units (PSU) were selected proportional to population size from each of the administrative regional units in every country (NUTS 2). The sampling frames were stratified by the degree of urbanization. Clusters of starting addresses were randomly drawn from each PSU. Then, households were chosen by standard random route procedures and respondents within the households were selected by the closest birthday rule (European Commission 2014).

4 EU 27: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia and Slovakia.

5 Studies on volunteering usually make a distinction between formal and informal volunteering. Both actions describe volunteerism, which, according to Bekkers (2008, p. 641), ‘refers to a broad range of activities that benefit another person, group, or cause and that are carried out by individuals by their own choice and without pay’. In contrast to formal volunteering, informal volunteering relates to activities such as helping and supporting friends, neighbors, acquaintances and relatives (outside of one’s own household) that take place directly between the people involved and outside of any formally organized structure (Bekkers 2008). Formal volunteering, on the other hand, is carried out within an organizational context such as a club or association and is characterized by a high level of commitment and regularity of social exchange (Wilson 2012). Unfortunately, our data set does not clearly distinguish between the two forms of voluntary work. While the introductory question about voluntary activity (q15) does not differentiate between informal and formal volunteering (‘Do you currently have a voluntary activity on a regular or occasional basis?’), the follow-up question (q16) relates exclusively to formal volunteering (‘In which type(s) of organisation(s) or association(s) do you do your voluntary activity?’). The follow-up question was asked only to those respondents who answered the introductory question positively. Against this background, it can be assumed that the data set equates volunteering with formal volunteering (European Commission 2014).

6 It has to be noted, that among the younger cohort Internet use is no distinctive feature. A closer look at the distribution shows that between 60 and 80 per cent of the people younger than 30 use the Internet on a daily basis. Thus, the variation might not be sufficient to explain volunteering among the younger cohort.

7 The plot only displays the probability for the category regular volunteering to make the figure more lucid. The probabilities are the same if all categories would have been displayed.