Volunteering as a buffer against the scars of unemployment

• In Event: Exploring the Nexus Between Volunteering and Employment

Abstract

* Research aim
Unemployment often has a negative effect on one’s emotional well-being. Having a social support network and performing a meaningful social activity through volunteering, however, could make volunteers less sensitive to the stress of job loss. Therefore our research examines how the negative association between unemployment and life satisfaction is different for volunteers and non-volunteers, and how these mechanisms differ across age groups.

* Theoretical rationale
Unemployment or job loss is one of the most stressful life events. Latent Deprivation Theory not only explains why unemployment may negatively impact well-being, it also suggests that other forms of productive work may compensate for the lost latent benefits of paid work (Jahoda, 1982). Formal volunteering, in particular, provides volunteers the opportunity to form new social ties and build up self-esteem, self-efficacy, and a purpose in life by accomplishing meaningful goals (Thoits, 2012).
The positive association between volunteering and well-being/health has been well-established (Jenkinson et al., 2013). Yet there are limited studies on the moderating effects of formal volunteering on the subjective well-being of unemployed individuals, with mixed evidence (Hansen et al., 2018; Kamerāde & Bennett, 2018; Sugihara et al., 2008; Yang, 2020). Our “mega-analysis” on a large dataset from multiple countries provides a test of the moderating effect of volunteering that is more robust than any previous study. Furthermore, we test how the interplay between unemployment, life satisfaction and volunteering is different across age groups.

* Analysis plan
We analyze harmonized data from seven longitudinal surveys spanning a period of 33 years and 22 European countries, a type of research design we have previously labeled “mega-analysis” (de Wit et al., 2022). We will use the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA), the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the British Household Panel Survey and its successor the UK Household Longitudinal Study (BHPS/UKHLS), the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), the Dutch Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS), and the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey (GINPS). The data covers over 1,000,000 observations from more than 300,000 respondents.
We perform first-difference models, regressing changes in life satisfaction on changes in employment status, and adding interactions between employment status and volunteer status. We repeat these models for different age groups and plot predicted values of life satisfaction by age. In addition, we carry out a series of sensitivity analyses to examine whether the results are robust across (or vary by) countries, surveys and survey cohorts.

* Contributions
This project offers three significant contributions: (1) We add robust evidence from Europe about the relationship between unemployment, volunteering, and life satisfaction, which contributes to the understanding of trajectories of emotional well-being across social groups in different contexts; (2) We provide policy makers with actionable information about the potential of volunteering as a way to cope with unemployment-related stress; (3) We provide open code and documentation to add these data to existing harmonization projects, providing a resource to other researchers for incorporating additional cohort studies.

References

de Wit, A., Qu, H., & Bekkers, R. (2022). The health advantage of volunteering is larger for older and less healthy volunteers in Europe: A mega-analysis. European Journal of Ageing. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-022-00691-5
Hansen, T., Aartsen, M., Slagsvold, B., & Deindl, C. (2018). Dynamics of Volunteering and Life Satisfaction in Midlife and Old Age: Findings from 12 European Countries. Social Sciences, 7(5), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7050078
Jahoda, M. (1982). Employment and Unemployment. Cambridge University Press.
Jenkinson, C. E., Dickens, A. P., Jones, K., Thompson-Coon, J., Taylor, R. S., Rogers, M., Bambra, C. L., Lang, I., & Richards, S. H. (2013). Is volunteering a public health intervention? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the health and survival of volunteers. BMC Public Health, 13(1), 773. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-773
Kamerāde, D., & Bennett, M. R. (2018). Rewarding Work: Cross-National Differences in Benefits, Volunteering During Unemployment, Well-Being and Mental Health. Work, Employment and Society, 32(1), 38–56. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017016686030
Sugihara, Y., Sugisawa, H., Shibata, H., & Harada, K. (2008). Productive Roles, Gender, and Depressive Symptoms: Evidence From a National Longitudinal Study of Late-Middle-Aged Japanese. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 63(4), P227–P234. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/63.4.P227
Thoits, P. A. (2012). Role-Identity Salience, Purpose and Meaning in Life, and Well-Being among Volunteers. Social Psychology Quarterly, 75(4), 360–384. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272512459662
Yang, J. (2020). Formal Volunteering Buffers the Negative Impact of Unemployment among Older Workers: A Longitudinal Analysis. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 63(3), 189–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2020.1744057

Authors

• Arjen de De Wit, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Ellie Qu, Texas A&M University

• Rene Bekkers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Bianca Suanet, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam