Authors

• Kansalaisareena
• Taloustutkimus

Keywords

labour (resource), private voluntary organizations, voluntary organizations, voluntary work, volunteering

Abstract

This survey studied voluntary work in Finland. The data were collected by Taloustutkimus and the study was commissioned by Kansalaisareena (Citizen Forum). First, the study charted how many hours the respondents had spent within the previous four weeks on voluntary work in different fields (e.g. social welfare and health care, sports, children and youth, culture, immigrants). Additionally, the study surveyed the types of tasks included in the voluntary work (e.g. group instruction, cleaning, fundraising, administrative and educational tasks, providing peer support).

The survey also charted the respondents' opinions with regard to a set of attitudinal statements concerning, for example, whether more training and support should be available for voluntary work, whether the respondents would be interested in trying voluntary work during work time or as part of studies if a possibility was given for this, and whether the respondents thought there should be a comprehensive search engine on the Internet designed to find voluntary work.

Background variables included, among others, gender, age, economic activity and occupational status, marital status, household composition, number of children under 18 living at home and their ages, income of the household, education, type of accommodation, political party preference, and regional variables such as NUTS3 region, number of inhabitants in R's municipality of residence, and type of the municipality (urban, semi-urban, rural).