The same but different: a comparison between family volunteers, other formal volunteers and non-volunteers

Extensive research has examined how family status, composition and dynamics affect volunteering, but not how family members volunteer as a group. This research note explores family volunteering – two or more members of a family volunteering together. Using diary data from the United Kingdom Time Use Survey, it examines some essential facts about family volunteering – the extent and patterns of family volunteering, and how family volunteers differ from individuals who volunteer but not together with members of their family and from non-volunteers. The results suggest that family volunteering constitutes a substantive proportion of formal volunteering and nearly half of family volunteers are two adult partners. The findings also indicate that while family volunteering shares some predictors of volunteering with formal volunteering without one’s family members, it is also a sufficiently different volunteering phenomenon that warrants further theoretical explanation and empirical investigation.