The impact of volunteering on volunteers in 23 European countries

• In Event: Empirical Assessment of Third Sector Impact

Abstract

Most of the evidence of the positive contribution of volunteering for the volunteers is based on established correlations between volunteering and measures of individual health, well-being or civic engagement. Confounding unobserved variables may lead to biased regression estimates. This paper, explores the impact of volunteering on the self-reported health, the self-reported well-being, and the level of political engagement of volunteers, using European Social Survey data for 23 European countries and propensity scores matching estimators. Volunteering has a minimal impact on self-reported health, no impact on self-reported well-being, and a significant impact on political engagement when estimated with matching estimators.

Author

• Bernard Enjolras