This project is part of the Center for research on civil society and the voluntary sector.
Sub-project 1: Changes in voluntary efforts and consequences of the corona pandemic
Researchers associated with the Center for research on civil society and the voluntary sector have carried out five representative surveys of the Norwegian population on voluntary efforts in 1998, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2017. These surveys constitute, alongside the organizational surveys, the most important source of data on the voluntary sector in Norway that are representative of the population as a whole and are comparable over time.
It is now particularly important to collect updated data to see what changes have occurred in voluntary efforts during the corona pandemic. This project will collect data and carry out analyzes that provide an overview of the scope, composition and change in various forms of volunteering by comparing it with the previous, large volunteering surveys. The data from the population survey will also be analyzed and seen in context with data from organizational surveys in a separate project on "The consequences of the corona pandemic for volunteering".
Research topics:
- Provide an up-to-date picture of the scope and composition of volunteering in terms of voluntary work for organisations, membership and monetary gifts, direct assistance to people outside one's own household and close family, and time-limited or online forms of voluntary work.
- Analyze changes in the scope of volunteering, and compare trends between different types of voluntary organization (ICNPO categories) and between different forms of voluntary involvement.
- Elucidate conditions behind changes in the scope and forms of volunteering, e.g. social background, work situation and connection to voluntary organisations.
- Collect data on the extent to which the volunteering has been related to the corona pandemic (e.g. stations for testing and vaccination, information on infection control and vaccines, contact lines for the disadvantaged, and physical, cultural and social activities for vulnerable groups), first and primarily with regard to analysis in the project on "The consequences of the corona pandemic for volunteering".
- Collect data for other volunteering sub-projects and include questions related to their research themes.
Participants
Audun Fladmoe and Karl Henrik Sivesind.
Sub-project 2: Life course and motivational explanations of volunteering
As a person goes through different stages in life, many things change, including the ways one volunteers and the reasons one has for contributing. In this project, we will take a closer look at voluntary work through three phases in the life course: Young adults, parents with children living at home and the elderly.
The purpose is to investigate whether and in what way the conditions for participation in volunteering change through different life phases, including different motivations for participation and "competing" care tasks and (leisure) activities. The life course perspective is well suited to elucidate the relationships between individual life experiences, social changes, and changes in the voluntary sector.
The project will shed light on the following questions:
- What characterizes volunteering in these three life phases?
- To what extent do motives for volunteering vary between these phases?
- Are there age-specific opportunities, limitations and barriers related to volunteering in these different life phases?
- To what extent do the positive effects of volunteering vary for the individual in different life phases?
- Have the patterns that characterize volunteering in different life phases changed over time?
Participants
Audun Fladmoe, Karl Henrik Sivesind and Ivar Eimhjellen.
Sub-project 3: Elderly and volunteering
Public documents point to the great resource the elderly represent and the potential for voluntary work. At the same time, several studies show that older people are not necessarily available for voluntary work to the extent that authorities and politicians envision, and that such a policy can have unintended consequences.
The project focuses on the elderly and volunteering, and will cast light over areas and organizations where the elderly are particularly active and/or most in demand.
A separate sub-project will survey the type and scope of Norwegian volunteering, including the elderly. This project will both summarize knowledge from previous research on elderly volunteers' motivation and go more in-depth, primarily through an organizational perspective.
Research Questions
Central questions are:
- What do older volunteers experience as a result of their involvement (motivation), and what form of volunteering is considered most interesting (the individual perspective)?
- What do voluntary organizations and municipalities feel that these older volunteers add, and what inhibits and promotes volunteering from this group?
- What contradictions can arise between municipalities and organized volunteering about recruiting their own volunteers?
- How is "elderly volunteering" promoted and argued for by the local organized volunteering and from the municipality's side in documents, on websites and so on? Do we find different marketing? Are the arguments at the local level equivalent to those that are dominant at the national level (demography, aging population, lack of sustainability and so on)?
- Do older volunteers add value compared to other volunteers?
Participants
Tord Skogedal Lindèn and Rune Ervik.
Sub-project 4: Volunteering and quality of life among immigrants
Analyzes from Statistics Norway show that there are small differences in subjective quality of life between immigrants and the Norwegian population as a whole, although there are a few more among immigrants who have lower satisfaction. At the same time, there are significant differences in perceived quality of life between different immigrant groups, where people from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Poland in particular have a worse perceived quality of life than people from Somalia. Immigrants' quality of life is particularly linked to having a partner who does not live in Norway, experienced discrimination, impaired functioning and difficult finances, as well as subjective factors such as loneliness and psychological problems.
There is less knowledge in Norway about the extent to which volunteering is linked to quality of life among immigrants. This project therefore examines the extent to which volunteering affects immigrants' perceived quality of life, whether this is more closely linked for immigrants than for the rest of the population, and whether there are different patterns for different immigrant groups.
Research Questions
- Is there a connection between indicators for quality of life and voluntary work among immigrants in Norway?
- Are there differences between different immigrant groups in connections between quality of life and volunteering?
- Are there differences between immigrants and the general population in relation to quality of life and volunteering?
Publications
Skiple, Jon Kåre; Eimhjellen, Ivar & Christensen, Dag Arne (2024). Volunteering and quality of life among immigrants. Centre for Research on Civil Society and Voluntary Sector. Report 2024:3. Full text in Research Archive
