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The Role of Religiosity for Formal and Informal Volunteering in the Netherlands

Abstract  

This paper deals with the question: To what extent do individual religious characteristics, in addition to collective religious characteristics, contribute to
the explanation of formal and informal volunteering in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 21st century?
To answer this research question, we used the SOCON 2005–2006 dataset. Our main finding concerns informal volunteering: we
found that spirituality increases the likelihood of informal volunteering, implying that openness to other people’s needs
increases the likelihood of the actual provision of help. There are no other aspects of religiosity that are related to informal
volunteering. With regard to formal volunteering we found that, in line with previous research, religious attendance is related
positively to formal volunteering, religious as well as secular volunteering, which can be regarded as support for the proposition
that religious involvement is important for norm conformity. Further, having a more religious worldview decreases the likelihood
of formal volunteering which might show that those with a strong religious worldview are more concerned with the ‘otherworldly’
and less so with what they do in this world. We found no influence of individual religious characteristics on formal volunteering.
These results confirm the idea that integration into a religious community plays quite a large role in explaining formal volunteering.
Informal volunteering, however, seems to be independent of social networks: it rather depends on individual motivation.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • DOI 10.1007/s11266-010-9160-6
  • Authors
    • Marike van Tienen, Faculty of Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
    • Peer Scheepers, Department of Sociology and Methodology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands
    • Jan Reitsma, Department of Sociology and Methodology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands
    • Hans Schilderman, Faculty of Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
    • Journal Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations
    • Online ISSN 1573-7888
    • Print ISSN 0957-8765
Posted in: Journal Article Abstracts on 10/25/2010 | Link to this post on IFP |
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