Determinants and impacts of voluntary action. Going comparative on the basis of the ILO Manual

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Discussion

Abstract

A Panel presented at the ISTR 2012 conference in Siena, “Methodologies for Valuing Volunteering - How to understand the impact of volunteering” depicted a rugged physical map of the comparative research on volunteering: uncertain conceptual frontiers, methodological jungle and consequent lack of comparable data. Research was not capable to provide adequate instruments for European Union to seize the opportunity of the European Year of Volunteering 2011 to imagine and promote a transnationally applicable institutional framework that could ease and put in evidence the engagement of citizens.
Since then, volunteering networks and research community have forged interesting collaborations that hold a promise of abridging the distance to the policy horizon and trigger novel interactions with official statistics. The “beyond GDP” culture is steadily permeating institutions and civil society, progressively disarming the ideological academic contrapositions. The terrain is ripe to experiment with comparative assessment of what volunteering contributes to wider societal policy goals.
Data generated by statistics based on International Organisation of Labour “Manual on the measurement of volunteer work” (2011), drafted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies in cooperation with the ILO and an International Technical Experts Group, with support from United Nations Volunteers, are one of the most potent and promising source to this end.

European countries are leading on the implementation of the ILO Manual. In the last four years a set of potentially comparable data on organized and informal volunteering rates, demographic characteristics of volunteers, the activities they perform and the quantity of unpaid work they contribute has been generated for Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, Norway. This holds an unprecedented potential for comparative studies of volunteering and for evidence based policy making.
The Round Table is aimed at discussing the most promising tools and terrains for future comparative studies of determinants and of impacts of volunteering. Our interest is also to assess the potential of comparative data for policy use. It will propose an initial array of different methodological cuts that analyze determinants and impacts of volunteer work on the basis of the ILO Manual national statistical data, as well as some research results. It will provide first hypotheses for systematic European comparisons and will a global perspective.
The Round Table is promoted and coordinated by the ILO Manual Italian implementer team:
Ksenija Fonovic - SPES Lazio, Riccardo Guidi - University of Pisa, Tania Cappadozzi – Istat.

Academics and statisticians from four European countries will discuss methods, results and perspectives.
From Belgium: Lesley Hustinx - Universiteit Gent, Virginie Xhauflair – University of Liege.
From Ireland: Gillian Wall – Central Statistics Office.
From Norway: Karl Henrik Sivesind – Institutt for samfunnsforskning.
From Poland: Slawomir Nalecz – Central Statistical Office and Warsaw University, the Institute for Social Policy.

Participants assessing the European experience from the global perspective are:
Jacqueline Butcher – Centro de Investigación y Estudios sobre Sociedad Civil, Mexico.
Lester M. Salamon – JHU SAIS, Italy.

Sub Unit

• Volunteerism and Co-production

Chair

• Ksenija Fonovic, Spes - Associazione Promozione e Solidarietà

Presenters

• Lesley Hustinx, Department of Sociology - Ghent University

• Lester Salamon, Center for Civil Society Studies - IPS

• Karl Henrik Sivesind, Institute for Social Research

• Slawomir Nalecz, Institute of Political Studies Polish Academy of Sciences

• Jacqueline Butcher, Centro de Investigación y Estudios sobre Sociedad Civil, A.C.

• Gillian Wall, Central Statistics Office of Ireland

Session Organizer

• Ksenija Fonovic, Spes - Associazione Promozione e Solidarietà