Abstract
In this chapter, we try to outline some of the dynamics determining the pattern of volunteering among women and men in Scandinavia. These countries have a high level of gender equality in terms of social and economic conditions. There are high levels of labour market participation for both women and men. Having said this, the Scandinavian countries seem in contrast to most other European countries able to combine high levels of gender equality in the labour market with involvement in voluntary work. Men still have a slightly higher probability of doing voluntary work than women, but these gender differences have declined, primarily during the last decade. Furthermore, the male domination in volunteering is concentrated in one sector – sport activities. If we exclude this sector, we find not only gender equality but even more women than men currently doing voluntary work in all three Scandinavian countries. The growing gender equality in volunteering has many causes but two trends appear highly important: first, the general development in societies with growing gender equality in public appearance and in allocation of resources, second, a reconfiguration of the non-profit sector from sport, recreation and politics towards welfare services and local community activities. Both trends have increased volunteering among women, thus diminishing male domination.
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- 1.
Persons volunteering in sports are excluded from the analysis regardless of their volunteering in other sub-sectors. This is to obtain a clearer analysis of the driving factors for volunteering. This is of particular importance in the regression analysis. However, the overlaps between sub-sectors are negligible in terms of people devoting time to more than one area of volunteering in general.
- 2.
For the Scandinavian population shown in Table 7.4 and for the separate analyses for women and men in Tables 7.5 and 7.6, we have carried out regression analyses for both the total population (aged 18–84) and the restricted population of labor market aged individuals (18–65). This is done to control for retiring, which especially has an impact on whether health and presence of dependent children affect the probability of doing voluntary work.
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Boje, T.P., Hermansen, J., Møberg, R.J. (2019). Gender and Volunteering in Scandinavia. In: Henriksen, L.S., Strømsnes, K., Svedberg, L. (eds) Civic Engagement in Scandinavia. Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98717-0_7
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