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National Context, Religiosity, and
Volunteering: Results from 53 Countries
Stijn Ruiter
Nan Dirk De Graaf
Radboud University Nijmegen
Radboud University Nijmegen
To what extent does the national religious context affect volunteering? Does a religious
environment affect the relation between religiosity and volunteering? To answer these
questions, this study specifies individual level, contextual level, and cross-level
interaction hypotheses. The authors test the hypotheses by simultaneously studying the
impact of religiosity of individuals, the national religious context, and their interplay on
volunteering while controlling for possible confounding factors both at individual and
contextual levels. Based on multilevel analyses on data from 53 countries, frequent
churchgoers are more active in volunteer work and a devout national context has an
additional positive effect. However, the difference between secular and religious people
is substantially smaller in devout countries than in secular countries. Church attendance
is hardly relevant for volunteering in devout countries. Furthermore, religious
volunteering has a strong spillover effect, implying that religious citizens also volunteer
more for secular organizations. This spillover effect is stronger for Catholics than for
Protestants, non-Christians and nonreligious individuals.
Delivered by Ingenta to :
among the most common voluntary organizahurch members generally are more
involved of Groningen
University
29 Feb 2008
10:55:03
in voluntary organizations thanFri,
nonmemtions
(Gaskin and Davis Smith 1995).
bers (Becker and Dhingra 2001; Curtis, Baer,
Although church members volunteer more
and Grabb 2001; Hodgkinson 2003; Lam 2002;
than nonmembers, research suggests that volWilson and Janoski 1995).1 Not only are memunteering is not driven by church membership,
bership rates among them higher, they are also
but instead by levels of church attendance (De
more likely to volunteer. Therefore, it comes as
Hart 1999; Hodgkinson, Weitzman, and Kirsch
no surprise that voluntary organizations often
1990; Watt 1991; Wilson and Musick 1997).
have religious backgrounds. This is not only
Nominal members who never visit church and
true for the United States, where over one third
nonmembers volunteer equally often, whereas
of all volunteers is active in religious organizathe highest volunteer rates are found among
tions (Boraas 2003). Even in more secular
frequent churchgoers. Regular churchgoers are
European societies, religious organizations are
better integrated within religious networks than
those who never attend church. Being part of
such networks enhances the chance to volunteer
(Bekkers 2003).
Direct correspondence to Stijn Ruiter, Radboud
Nonmembers volunteer less. But, what if
University Nijmegen, ICS/Sociology, PO Box 9104,
6500 HE Nijmegen, Netherlands (s.ruiter@ru.nl).
they are nested within a highly religious context?
An earlier version of this article was presented at the
Most probably, in such a scenario, they have a
ESRC Research Seminar on Politics and Religion in
considerable number of active church members
Oxford, UK, September 13, 2004. The authors thank
amongst their family, friends, and acquainTom Snijders, Ruud van der Meulen, Paul de Graaf,
tances. Will this make them more likely to voland the anonymous ASR reviewers for their helpful
unteer? We know that avid church members
comments.
volunteer more because they are better inte1 Throughout this article, we use “church” also for
grated within religious networks (Bekkers 2003;
non-Christian holy places (e.g., mosques and synaWilson and Musick 1997). They are more likegogues). Consequently, a non-Christian is also called
ly to know about voluntary organizations, more
a church member.
C
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 2006, VOL. 71 (April:191–210)
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192—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
likely to be asked to participate (Bryant et al.
increasingly less likely for nonmembers to have
2003; Musick, Wilson, and Bynum 2000), and
active church members within their social enviit will be harder for them to refuse such requests
ronment. This could, indirectly, cause a nation’s
(Snow, Zurcher, Ekland-Olson 1980). However,
volunteer rate to drop as well.
it is unclear to what extent this network arguTo test for effects of the national religious
ment applies also to people who themselves
context, we have to study the impact of indinever visit church. Are they affected by the relividual religiosity and national religious congiosity of their social environment too? This
text simultaneously while controlling for
would make the network explanation more genconfounding factors at both individual and coneral: being more strongly integrated within nettextual levels. This requires international comworks of religious people makes one more likely
parative research. Smith (1994) and Wilson
to volunteer. This should then hold for all peo(2000) conclude in their overview articles that
ple, not just for regular churchgoers.
research on the impact of the context on indiThe general network hypothesis implies difvidual volunteering is underdeveloped.
ferences between countries: citizens in more
Similarly, Curtis et al. argue that scholars paid
devout societies are more likely to associate
little attention to developing “theories of crosswith active church members (cf. Kelley and De
national variation in association involvement”
Graaf 1997), which should increase their chance
(2001:784). Hodgkinson also concludes that
to volunteer. If the religious environment indeed
“future research would greatly benefit from a
is an important predictor, we expect not just
stronger theoretical base to explain the differhigher volunteer rates in more devout societies
ences in rates of volunteering across nations”
(i.e. a composition effect), but also that all cit(2003: 52). Up until now, international comizens of those societies—irrespective of their
parative research on voluntary association
own religiosity—are more likely to volunteer.
involvement (studying either memberships or
Hence, we predict that devoutness ofDelivered
society isby Ingenta
volunteering,
to : and sometimes both) has focused
positively related to participation level
(i.e. a of Groningen
mainly on political and economic factors (e.g.,
University
context effect). Secular people in devout
counFri, 29
Feb 2008Salamon
10:55:03and Sokolowski 2003; Hodgkinson
tries should also volunteer more, since knowl2003; Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas 2001).
edge about volunteering reaches them more
However, because we hypothesize that religion
easily through their social networks and they are
is a key factor, we propose that international
more likely to be recruited and motivated by the
comparative research on volunteering should
large number of religious fellow citizens. The
take the national religious context into account
national religious context effect could imply a
as well. Although religion is included in some
dampened effect of individual religiosity in
recent studies (Dekker and Van den Broek 1998;
more devout societies, since people who do not
Halman 2003), these studies do not discriminate
attend church would be more likely to volunteer
compositional from contextual effects. Curtis et
and frequent churchgoers would not have to
al. (2001) do distinguish these effects and find
invest much time to sustain high levels of volthat working memberships (religious organizaunteering.
tions and unions excluded) vary with national
Whether people’s religious environment influreligious composition.2 Parboteeah, Cullen, and
ences their volunteering becomes an important
Lim (2004) also find a strong positive effect of
question if we consider that many industrialized
the national religious context, but unfortunatecountries secularized in the past decades (with
ly they do not control for church attendance at
the United States as a possible exception: cf.
the individual level. We try to add to this
Norris and Inglehart 2004; De Graaf and Need
2000). If religiosity indeed is an important factor, secularization might result in declining vol2 Exactly the same World Values Survey items on
unteer rates for two reasons. First, the number
unpaid work for voluntary organizations are someof avid church members—the people who are
times used to measure working memberships (e.g.,
most likely to volunteer—declines.
Curtis et al. 2001), while in other cases they are said
Consequently, levels of volunteering could drop
to measure (formal) volunteering (e.g., Halman 2003;
sharply. Second, while more and more people
Hodgkinson 2003; Parboteeah, Cullen, and Lim
turn their back on the church, it becomes
2004). We address this issue in the data section.
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RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–193
research by providing new hypotheses on the
influence of religious context and by testing
them on a large-scale, international comparative
dataset containing information on volunteering
in 53 countries between 1981 and 2001.
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES
Volunteering is a form of institutionalized,
unpaid helping behavior that benefits other people, groups, or organizations (Hodgkinson 2003;
Wilson 2000). Although such behavior could be
beneficial to volunteers themselves, they certainly do not gain financially (Dekker and
Halman 2003). Thus, to initiate volunteerism,
people have to be motivated in another way. To
understand why people volunteer, we build upon
previous research distinguishing three types of
explanations: (1) altruistic norms, (2) social
networks, and (3) knowledge and skills.3 First,
we elaborate on the relation between individual
religiosity and volunteering. Subsequently, we
specify hypotheses on effects of the national religious context.
knit communities, they are more likely to know
about existing voluntary organizations, it
increases the chance that they are asked to participate (Bryant et al. 2003; Musick, Wilson, and
Bynum 2000), and furthermore, the close-knit
community makes it difficult to refuse such
requests. Wilson and Musick refer to this network explanation when they argue that “most
formal volunteers are persuaded to volunteer by
family members, coworkers, or fellow worshippers” (1997:700). Thus, based on both the
altruism and the network explanation, our
hypothesis is as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Church members volunteer more
than nonmembers.
The explanation that church members volunteer for altruistic reasons is under attack.
Cnaan, Kasternakis, and Wineburg (1993) show
that volunteers and nonvolunteers do not differ
in their intrinsic religious motivation. Bekkers
(2003) finds that volunteering directly varies
with altruism, but altruism does not explain
why church members volunteer more than nonmembers. By contrast, the social network explaDelivered by Ingenta to :
nation has received strong support (Becker and
University
HYPOTHESES ON INDIVIDUAL RELIGIOSITY
AND of Groningen
Dhingra
2001; Bekkers 2003; Jackson et al.
Fri, 29 Feb 2008
10:55:03
VOLUNTEERING
1995; Lam 2002; Park and Smith 2000; Yeung
Two general explanations for why church mem2004). Empirical evidence suggests that church
bers volunteer more than nonmembers have
members have more active volunteers within
been proposed. First, avid church members
their social networks. Consequently, church
would have internalized the social norm of altrumembers are more likely to meet other volunism (the intrinsic motivation to help others)
teers and be recruited by them. Becker and
Dhingra underline the power of this social netmore than nonmembers. Solidarity, love of one’s
work explanation stating “social networks,
neighbors, and self-sacrifice are important
rather than beliefs, dominate as the mechanism
virtues promoted by the world’s major religions
leading to volunteering . . . the importance of
(Wuthnow 1991:122). Religious people would
religious beliefs plays little role in church attenacquire these altruistic norms in church and
ders’ decisions to volunteer” (2001:329–30).
this would lead to an increased chance of volThe fact that most volunteers were asked to
unteering. Second, according to the social netjoin (Boraas 2003; Gaskin and Davis Smith
work explanation, church members would
1995) is also in-line with the social network
volunteer more because their social network
explanation.
provides stronger recruitment and motivation
The network explanation suggests the imporfunctions. Given that members are part of closetance of church attendance. Regular churchgoers are more strongly connected to their religious
group, making them more likely to be asked to
3 Wilson and Musick (1997) and Oesterle, Johnson,
volunteer. Most probably, this recruitment mechand Mortimer (2004) group these explanations under
anism is considerably weaker for those church
the following headings: (1) cultural, (2) social, and
members who only occasionally visit church.
(3) human capital. We do not use these highly abstract
This is exactly what De Hart (1999) and Bekkers
terms, because their wide use have made their mean(2003) find for the Netherlands: nonmembers
ing unclear, which makes accumulation of knowledge
and members who attend church infrequently
difficult.
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194—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
are almost equally less likely to volunteer,
whereas church members who often visit church
are much more likely to volunteer. Wuthnow
also indicates this when he argues that “religious
inclinations make very little difference unless
one becomes involved in some kind of organized religious community” (1991:156). Because
we expect church attendance to be highly influential, we predict the following:
Hypothesis 2: Differences in volunteering
between church members and nonmembers decline strongly after taking church
attendance into account.
spillover effect. On top of the network explanation, they add that people active in religious
volunteering obtain specific skills that are valuable for secular voluntary organizations as well.
This would make them more likely to be recruited by secular organizations, because organizations are actively “prospecting for participants”
who have these skills (Brady, Schlozman, and
Verba 1999). Thus, the spillover hypothesis
reads as follows:
Hypothesis 4a: People who do religious volunteer work are more likely to volunteer for
secular organizations as well.
According to Wilson and Janoski (1995),
Church members and nonmembers may difsome conservative Protestant denominations
fer considerably with regard to their volunteerdiscourage secular volunteering. Volunteering
ing, this does not make all members equally
for organizations that are directly linked to the
involved. Research shows large denominationchurch would be strongly supported though.
al differences among church members. In genTherefore, strong integration within these
eral, Protestants seem to volunteer more than
denominations should lower the chance to volCatholics (Curtis et al. 2001; Dekker and De
unteer for secular organizations and raise the
Hart 2001; Lam 2002; Wuthnow 1991:322).
chance of religious volunteering. Consequently,
Dekker and De Hart (2001) provide an instituthere should be no spillover effect for these
tional explanation: the Protestant church is less
denominations.
Park and Smith (2000) indeed
hierarchically structured than theDelivered
Catholicby Ingenta
to :
find that high church attendance reduces the
church. Furthermore, the Protestant church
sub- of Groningen
University
divides into smaller parishes. Both the
less
Fri,
29hierFeb 2008probability
10:55:03 of volunteering through a nonchurch
organization
among churchgoing Protestants.
archical structure and the smaller subdivisions
However, since we cannot distinguish between
would generate more involvement. Lam
different Protestant denominations within this
(2002:408) argues that “Protestant principles
study, we expect the following:
discourage the pursuit of self-interests and
induce a sense of social responsibility among
Hypothesis 4b: Conservative Protestants lower
their adherents.” Based on these explanations,
the overall spillover effect for Protestants
our next hypothesis is as follows:
compared to the spillover effect for other
denominations.
Hypothesis 3: Protestants volunteer more than
Catholics.
All previous hypotheses are about volunteering in general. However, it is reasonable to
expect that religious involvement boosts volunteering for religious voluntary organizations
to a larger extent than volunteering for secular
organizations (Wuthnow 1999). Therefore, we
have to study the impact of religious involvement on general volunteering apart from its
effect on secular volunteering. However, the
network explanation applies again. If those
already involved in religious volunteering are
more likely to get acquainted with people who
volunteer for secular organizations, their chance
to volunteer for secular organizations should
be high as well. Jackson et al. (1995) and Dekker
and De Hart (2002) find evidence for such a
HYPOTHESES ON NATIONAL RELIGIOUS
CONTEXT AND VOLUNTEERING
So far, we have formulated hypotheses on the
impact of individual religiosity on volunteering.
Next, we elaborate on the relation between the
national religious context and volunteer work.
This relation is somewhat neglected in the literature. However, Kelley and De Graaf (1997)
provide us with arguments to predict a positive
impact of devoutness of a society. They find that
people who were raised by secular parents in relatively devout countries are more religious than
people who grew up with similar parents in
more secular countries. According to Kelley
and De Graaf, this comes about (a) through
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RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–195
people’s exposure to religious culture and (b)
because the pools of potential friends, teachers, colleagues, and marriage partners are predominantly devout. We expect that these two
phenomena influence volunteering as well. As
we have already argued, especially the social
network of people influences their chance to
volunteer. Under the assumption that people in
devout countries have an increased number of
religious people in their social networks, they
likely acquaint themselves with an increased
number of already active religious people who
possibly recruit them for volunteer activities.
Moreover, in such networks, the norm to volunteer could be stronger, as well as the social
pressure to behave accordingly. Based on these
arguments, we predict the following:
Hypothesis 5: The chance to volunteer increases with the devoutness of the society.
strongly influenced by church attendance in
secular societies. Conversely, in devout societies, if nonreligious people indeed have a
higher chance to be involved in volunteering
(see Hypothesis 5), this relieves avid churchgoers of the task to invest much time keeping
levels of volunteering high. Besides, if levels
of volunteering are already high, the added
value of an additional volunteer is lower. Based
on these arguments we expect the differences
between frequent and infrequent churchgoers
to be smaller, implying that church attendance
does not strongly affect volunteering in devout
societies. In sum, we expect the following:
Hypothesis 6: Individual church attendance
influences volunteering less in more
devout societies.
Furthermore, both theoretical arguments
DATA AND METHODS
and empirical findings lead us to expect that
the impact of individual church attendance on
For the test of our hypotheses, we use a convolunteering varies with the national religious
catenated dataset from the 1981–1984,
context. Hypothesis 2 suggests thatDelivered
all peopleby Ingenta to :
1990–1993, and 1999–2001 waves of the
are influenced equally by church attendance.
University of Groningen
European Values Surveys/World Values
However, we argue that the impactFri,
is weaker
29 Feb 2008 10:55:03
Surveys (European Values Study Group and
in more devout societies and stronger in more
World Values Survey Association 2005; World
secular societies. Kelley and De Graaf (1997)
Values Study Group 1999). These waves confind similar cross-level interaction effects for
tain similar questions on volunteering for seven
religiosity: religious upbringing influences
types of organizations. Unfortunately, the third
individual’s religiosity in devout countries only
marginally, whereas its effect is strong in secwave of the World Values Survey (1995–1997)
ular societies. They argue that religious parents
cannot be used, because the questions on volin secular societies have to invest more to
untary participation were changed too much.
inculcate religious beliefs in their children,
We select only those countries for which valid
whereas in devout societies, the religious conscores on all dependent and independent varitext already produces much of this socializaables were available.5 Furthermore, only peotion. Consequently, the effect of parental
ple between 18 and 90 years old are selected.
religiosity is smaller in more religious contexts.
These selections result in a dataset of 117,007
As an analogy, we argue that frequent churchindividuals distributed over 53 countries and
goers in secular societies face the problem of
the three waves. The distribution of all responinsufficient volunteer involvement. Therefore,
dents over the countries and waves as well as
building up and sustaining vibrant voluntary
4
average volunteer rates per country are disorganizations rest mainly on their shoulders.
played in Table 1.
As a result, the chance to volunteer should be
4 We assume that networks of secular people do not
negatively affect the voluntary participation of religious people in secular countries. This seems plausible, since absence of a norm to volunteer does not
mean there exists a norm not to volunteer.
5
Because in the Chinese questionnaire, serious
translation errors were made with respect to our
dependent variable (see codebook for World Values
Study Group 1999), we do not include the Chinese
dataset.
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196—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
Table 1. Respondents per Country and Wave and Percentage Volunteers per Country
Respondents
Country
Albania
Argentina
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Germany (East)
Germany (West)
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
India
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Mexico
Moldova
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Romania
Russia
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Tanzania
Turkey
Uganda
UK
Ukraine
USA
Zimbabwe
Total
1981–1984
1990–1993
1999–2001
.—
.—
00,904
00,529
00,592
01,210
.—
01,402
01,497
.—
.—
00,977
00,976
02,624
01,762
.—
01,460
.—
.—
00,945
00,965
01,187
01,664
01,868
.—
01,450
01,136
.—
.—
00,912
.—
.—
01,809
01,181
01,008
00,999
.—
00,977
.—
00,582
00,927
01,197
00,914
01,517
.—
.—
01,999
.—
01,325
.—
01,273
02,063
.—
.—
.—
01,050
.—
00,666
00,973
00,797
00,678
00,944
.—
.—
01,337
01,180
Delivered00,995
by Ingenta to00,934
:
01,345 University
01,964
01,926
of Groningen
01,167 Fri, 29 Feb
00,960
01,257
2008 10:55:03
.—
00,432
00,937
.—
.—
00,970
.—
.—
01,005
.—
.—
01,055
.—
01,168
01,120
.—
.—
01,008
01,116
01,002
00,991
00,310
00,302
00,926
01,208
01,180
.—
.—
.—
01,395
.—
.—
01,181
.—
.—
01,084
.—
01,080
00,895
.—
.—
00,551
.—
01,089
01,051
.—
01,654
02,450
.—
.—
01,327
.—
00,934
00,966
.—
.—
02,621
02,297
03,670
02,215
00,832
00,922
00,948
.—
.—
00,844
.—
.—
00,944
.—
.—
00,975
01,192
01,458
00,838
.—
.—
01,116
02,214
01,536
01,135
.—
.—
00,859
20,001
37,719
59,287
Volunteers
Total
Average %
0v0,904
002,331
002,899
000,977
005,362
001,460
001,910
004,719
002,586
000,912
001,809
003,188
000,977
001,509
003,628
001,999
001,325
003,336
001,050
001,639
002,419
001,337
003,109
005,235
003,384
001,369
000,970
001,005
001,055
002,288
001,008
003,109
001,538
002,388
001,395
001,181
001,084
001,975
000,551
002,140
004,104
001,327
001,900
002,621
008,182
002,702
000,844
000,944
000,975
003,488
001,116
004,885
000,859
117,007
42.1
15.5
17.5
14.9
19.5
21.2
14.6
31.5
25.9
15.5
18.5
14.5
12.1
25.6
13.6
10.2
28.2
18.0
31.9
12.2
22.2
33.0
17.4
17.5
11.2
17.3
10.0
20.1
25.1
25.4
31.7
25.7
17.1
20.6
33.5
42.7
09.6
11.7
41.7
17.5
09.9
31.7
13.7
44.3
11.4
29.2
74.2
05.5
57.1
16.6
09.1
38.4
58.9
21.4
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RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–197
DEPENDENT VARIABLES
Although there exists considerable variation
over the waves, countries with high volunteer
rates in one wave generally also have high rates
in the other waves. The Pearson R correlation
between the volunteer rates in 1981–1984 with
those of 1990–1993 is .75 (N = 17), for
1990–1993 and 1999–2001 it is .65 (N = 26),
and for 1981–1984 and 1999–2001 it is .67 (N
= 15). Averaged for all countries and waves,
21.4 percent of the respondents are active volunteers.
For the variable nonreligious volunteering, we
exclude volunteer work for religious and church
organizations from general volunteering.7 Since
most volunteer work is done in religious organizations (over 46 percent of all volunteering for
the seven different organizations is done for
religious organizations), general volunteering
and nonreligious volunteering are far from identical.
Although the complete list of voluntary organizations differs over the three waves, all three
waves contain similar questions on volunteering for seven different types of organizations.
Respondents were asked whether they were
doing unpaid work for one or more of the following organizations: (1) social welfare services
for elderly, handicapped, or deprived people;
(2) religious or church organizations; (3) education, arts, music, or cultural activities; (4)
labor unions; (5) political parties or groups; (6)
conservation, environment, and animal rights
groups; and (7) professional associations.
Because respondents were first asked whether
they were members of these organizations, some
scholars refer to the unpaid work with “working membership” (e.g., Curtis et al. 2001) rather
than volunteering. However, others use exactly
the same survey items and call it volunteering
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
(e.g., Halman 2003; Hodgkinson 2003;
Inglehart 2003; Parboteeah et al. 2004). Because
Basic descriptive statistics of the independent
we believe the items fit the aforementioned defvariables are displayed in Table 2. Church meminition of volunteering, we refer to
them asby Ingenta
Delivered
bershiptois: measured by the question whether
University
such. However, to determine whether
results of Groningen
people belong to a religious denomination, and
Fri,
Feb 2008 10:55:03
differ for memberships, we estimate
our29final
if so, which one. Question formulation differed
models for volunteering as well as membersomewhat between wave 1981–1984 and waves
ships.
1990–1993 and 1999–2001. Also, in some counWe construct the variable general volunteertries, different answer categories were used.
ing by assigning a score of 1 to respondents who
However, we are able to assign respondents to
did unpaid work for at least one of the seven
the following four categories: Catholics,
organizations.6 We assign a score 0 to responProtestants, non-Christians, and nonreligious.8
dents who did not do any volunteer work. We
Originally the answer categories for the quesuse this dichotomous dependent variable (cf.
tion on church attendance (apart from weddings, funerals, and christenings) ranged from
Curtis, Grabb, and Bear 1992; Wuthnow 1999)
“(practically) never” to “more than once a
instead of a count variable (cf. Curtis et al.
week.” We recode that ordinal variable to the
2001; Parboteeah et al. 2004) for two reasons.
First, our hypotheses pertain to the chance of
volunteering and not the number of organizations. Second, a count variable does not neces7 For nonreligious voluntary memberships, we
sarily correspond to level of involvement. People
exclude memberships of religious organizations from
who are involved in two or more voluntary
voluntary memberships.
8 Church membership should not be confused with
organizations do not automatically invest more
membership of a religious organization. We thank one
time than someone who volunteers for a single
of the anonymous reviewers for providing the folorganization.
6 Voluntary membership is constructed similarly
based on the seven items pertaining to the question
on memberships which preceded the question on
unpaid work.
lowing clear example. Being a member of the
Catholic church is really different from belonging to
the Knights of Columbus. In fact, of all church members in our dataset (Catholics, Protestants, and nonChristians) only 23 percent is a member of a religious
organization and only 12 percent volunteers for such
an organization.
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198—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Independent Variables
Individual level variables:a
—Sex (female = 1)
—Education
—Age
—Age-squared
—Married
—Cohabiting
—Divorced
—Widow
—Single
—Catholic
—Protestant
—Non-Christian
—Nonreligious
—Church attendance
Contextual level variables:b
—Average church attendance
—GDP/capita (US$1,000)
—Level of democracy
—Welfare state expenditure (% of GNP)
Range
Mean
Standard Deviation
0–1
0–9
18–90
324–8,100
0–1
0–1
0–1
0–1
0–1
0–1
0–1
0–1
0–1
0–104
.53
5.39
42.72
2,108.87
.59
.04
.06
.07
.23
.49
.22
.07
.22
19.19
.50
3.01
16.84
1,585.98
.49
.19
.24
.26
.42
.50
.41
.25
.42
30.88
2.13–69.74
.48–44.01
4–14
.00– 42.80
19.14
14.68
11.93
19.46
14.79
7.91
2.76
9.73
a Averages
and standard deviations are calculated over all 117,007 individuals.
and standard deviations are calculated over 96 country-wave combinations for all but welfare state
expenditure for which they are calculated over 83 country-wave combinations
b Averages
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University
approximate number of times someone
visits of Groningen
have a strong positive impact on volunteering
Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:55:03
church per year. This variable ranges from 0 to
(Wilson 2000). We use the question at which age
104, which corresponds to no visits at all and
respondents finished their fulltime education.
two visits a week, respectively.
The answers are recoded to a variable ranging
For every unique country-wave combination
from 0 (at the age of 12) to 9 (at 21 or older).
we average church attendance to obtain a measAge is measured in years. We also include a
ure for the religiosity of the country. Note that
quadratic term for age, because the relation
this variable actually varies over the waves.
between age and civic participation could be
Countries with a high average church attencurvilinear (Boraas 2003; Curtis et al. 1992;
dance are relatively religious, whereas counKnoke and Thomson 1977). Middle-aged peotries that score low on average church attendance
ple would be most active because they are more
are relatively secular.
strongly integrated in work and family than the
Next to the variables that are relevant for
young and old (Wilson 2000). Similar differtesting our hypotheses, we include sex, age,
ences are found between the married and unmareducational level, and marital status at the indiried. Married people in the United States
vidual level in our analyses. Women appear to
volunteer more than unmarried people (Sundeen
volunteer more than men in the United States
1990; Wilson 2000). Again, for Europe these
(Boraas 2003; Hayghe 1991), whereas in Europe
differences are less clear-cut (Gaskin and Davis
the picture is less clear. In some European counSmith 1995). We control for marital status
tries women are more involved while in others
because it might differ significantly over relimen contribute more (Gaskin and Davis Smith
gious groups and countries. We distinguish mar1995). Men and women might differ because
ried, cohabiting, divorced, widowed, and single
they are differently integrated in family, church,
people.
and work. Women are more involved in caring
At the contextual level, we also include
tasks, attend churches more often, but they less
national economic development measured by
often have a job. Consequently, their social netreal gross domestic product (GDP) per capita
works differ from men. Education is reported to
(Laspeyres index, US$ in 1996 constant prices)
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RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–199
which we obtain from Heston, Summers, and
and “civil liberties” and reverse the scale. This
results in a scale ranging from 2 to 14.
Aten (2002).9 In the literature (cf. Curtis et al.
Another possibly relevant context is implied
2001; Halman 2003), two arguments for a posby the crowding out hypothesis: collective welitive effect of economic development on level
fare state arrangements would crowd out volof volunteering can be found. First, it is argued
unteering because they provide substitutes for
that economic development leads to occupaindividual efforts to provide collective goods
tional specialization resulting in more diverse
(Menchik and Weisbrod 1987; Arts, Halman,
interest groups in which people would particiand Van Oorschot 2003; Salamon and
pate voluntarily. Second, affluent countries
Sokolowski 2003). However, the opposite has
would provide people with more resources (e.g.,
also been argued. According to the interdetime and training) necessary to participate.
pendence theory, more state involvement in
However, results are mixed. Parboteeah et al.
social welfare activities would lead to more vol(2004) do find a positive effect of gross nationunteering because voluntary organizations
al product (GNP) per capita, whereas Curtis et
would in fact be supported by the state (Salamon
al. (2001) do not find a significant effect of the
and Sokolowski 2003). Although a lot of
natural logarithm of GDP per capita on workresearch on the influence of the welfare state
ing memberships. Although Halman (2003)
uses the typology of Esping-Andersen (1990),
does find a positive bivariate relation between
we use a real measure for welfare state investGDP per capita and level of volunteering, it
ment (cf. Salamon and Sokolowski 2003). The
appears to be spurious after taking other conInternational Labour Organisation provides us
textual characteristics into account. Country
with such a measure, the percentage of the
characteristics that turn out to be conducive to
Gross National Product spent on social securivolunteering in Halman’s analysis are years of
ty (International Labour Office 1968–1996).11
continuous democracy and level of democracy.
This measure
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It is assumed that democracies provideUniversity
the infra- of Groningen
of Esping-Andersen’s typology. First, the typolstructure (e.g., freedom of speech and
ogy
is based on decommodification measures,
Fri,the
29right
Feb 2008
10:55:03
to assemble) necessary for voluntary organizawhich suffer from methodological weaknesses
tions to flourish. We do not use years of contin(Van Voorhis 2002). Second, the data vary not
only by country but also over time, whereas the
uous democracy, because for many countries it
typology remains fixed. Therefore, variations in
is linearly related to year of survey. However, the
volunteering between waves might be better
variable for level of democracy is included. It is
explained with our measure. Third, this measmeasured with the Gastil Index (Freedom House
ure suits the theory better, since the degree in
2005).10 We sum the scores on “political rights”
which the welfare state is developed is central
to the hypothesis and because more welfare
state arrangements require more social security expenditure. Fourth, Esping-Andersen’s
9 GDP per capita scores are unavailable for exacttypology can not easily be applied to countries
ly the right years for the following countries.
outside his original sample, whereas data on
Therefore, we use the scores from the years in parensocial security expenditure are available for
theses instead: Bulgaria (1991), Malta (1998), Puerto
many more countries. However, because inforRico (1998), Russia (1991), Singapore (1996), and
Vietnam (1997). Although Penn World Tables 6.1
mation on welfare state expenditures is not
does not distinguish East and West Germany anyavailable for all 53 countries in our dataset, we
more, these regions are distinguished in WVS, and
they have had radically different policies on religion
in the past. Therefore, we decide to maintain the
country distinction and estimate GDP per capita figures based of Penn World Tables 5.6 data.
10 No scores are available for exactly the right
years for the following countries. We therefore use
the scores for the years in parentheses: East Germany
(1989), Latvia (1991), Russia (1991), Slovenia
(1991), and West Germany (1989).
11 Because these data are unavailable for some
countries for the years 1981, 1990, we calculate them
on the basis of linear inter- and extrapolation of long
term trends. All data for 2000 are based on linear
extrapolation of the trends. Curve estimation per
country show that linear trends are good approximations of the true developments.
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200—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
report the results based on 42 countries in a
church members and nonmembers, we set the
nonreligious as reference category. By doing so,
separate section after the analyses on our comthe beta parameters for the religious groups
plete sample.12
should be interpreted in terms of how much the
Correlations between the contextual varilogit deviates from the one for nonreligious
ables show that more prosperous countries are
people. Next to church membership all control
generally more democratic (R = .60; N = 96),
variables are added.
less religious (R = –.29; N = 96), and spend
All religious affiliates appear to be much
more on social security (R = .58; N = 83). More
more likely to volunteer than the nonreligious,
democratic societies are less religious (R =
which supports Hypothesis 1. Moreover, there
–.24; N = 96) and have more extensive welfare
are large differences among the denominations.
states (R = .43; N = 83). Extensive welfare
Clearly, Protestants have a higher expected probstates appear to be less religious (R = –.40; N
ability to volunteer (.31) than Catholics (.25),
= 83).
which corroborates Hypothesis 3. 13 NonSince we hypothesize individual and conChristians (.32) are equally engaged in voluntextual level effects as well as cross-level interteer work as Protestants (differences between
action effects, we use multilevel analyses
them are not significant), whereas the nonrelitechniques (Bryk and Raudenbush 1992;
gious (.20) have a considerably lower probability
Snijders and Bosker 1999). Because our data
to volunteer.
consist of repeated cross-sectional surveys, we
Besides the clear effect of church memberdistinguish three levels (cf. Duncan, Jones and
ship, the control variables are influential as
Moon 1996; Subramanian, Jones, and Duncan
well. The chance of volunteering increases
2003): level 1 is the lowest level and consists of
strongly with educational level. As expected, the
the individual respondents; level 2 comprises the
relation between age and volunteering is curvisurvey waves within countries; and level 3 is
linear. However, the effect of age cannot simcomposed of the countries.
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ply be interpreted as life course effects, since
For the estimation of our models we
use the of Groningen
University
explanations could be involved. Putnam
Fri, 29
Feb 2008cohort
10:55:03
statistical program HLM, version
6.02a
(2000)
argues that declining levels of volun(Raudenbush et al. 2004). Because we want to
teering
might
be due to cohort effects, i.e. older
explain the probability of volunteering and our
birth
cohorts
are more active than younger
dependent variables are dichotomous, we esticohorts. This might partly explain the positive
mate hierarchical logistic regression models.
effect of age. The effect of marital status is also
The procedure we use is penalized quasi-likeas expected. Married people are the most active
lihood estimation and all but the dummy varivolunteers compared with cohabiting, divorced,
ables are mean-centered in the analyses.
or widowed individuals, but singles are similarly
active.
RESULTS
In model 2, we include church attendance
and allow its effect to vary for countries (level
GENERAL VOLUNTEERING
3) and waves (level 2). In general, attending
We start our analyses with the estimation of the
religious ceremonies influences the chance of
null model with random intercepts only (not
volunteering considerably. People who attend
shown in Table 3). From the null model it is clear
church twice a week are more than 5
that the probability of volunteering varies over
(exp(104*.016)) times more likely to volunteer
countries and survey waves.
than people who never visit church.14 However,
In model 1, we include church membership
and test whether the probability to volunteer
13 Expected probabilities of volunteering are caldiffers among religious denominations. Because
culated for married men with average age (42.7 years)
Hypothesis 1 focuses on the difference between
12 Data are unavailable for Albania, Croatia,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova,
Puerto Rico, Slovenia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
and average educational level (5.4).
14 Note that originally the church attendance variable was ordinal. So, be careful when interpreting the
effect of a single day increase. We checked whether
the positive effect of church attendance is less strong
at the higher end of the scale. Indeed, we found evi-
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RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–201
Table 3. Hierarchical Logistic Regression Models for General Volunteering and Voluntary Memberships
Voluntary
Membership
General Volunteering
Model 1
Intercept
Level-1 Variables:
—Sex (female = 1)
—Education
—Age
—Age-sq. (⫻100)
—Married (ref.)
—Cohabiting
—Divorced
—Widow
—Single
—Nonreligious (ref.)
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Model 5A
–1.570*** –1.271*** –1.278*** –1.326*** –1.317***
(.094)
(.085)
(.077)
(.072)
(.073)
–.003
(.030)
.113***
(.008)
.059***
(.005)
–.054***
(.005)
.—
–.103***
(.030)
.116***
(.007)
.062***
(.004)
–.061***
(.005)
.—
Model 5B
–.241*
(.096)
–.104***
(.030)
.116***
(.007)
.062***
(.004)
–.061***
(.005)
.—
–.105***
(.031)
.118***
(.007)
.063***
(.004)
–.062***
(.005)
.—
–.104***
(.032)
.118***
(.007)
.063***
(.005)
–.062***
(.005)
.—
–.214***
(.030)
.113***
(.006)
.061***
(.004)
–.063***
(.005)
.—
–.273*** –.184**
–.184**
(.078)
(.065)
(.065)
–.144*** –.080**
–.081**
(.032)
(.029)
(.029)
–.105**
–.144*** –.144***
(.034)
(.031)
(.031)
–.013
–.016
–.016
(.038)
(.030)
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to :
.—University
.—of Groningen
.—
–.191**
(.068)
–.082**
(.031)
–.145***
(.033)
–.018
(.031)
.—
–.191**
(.069)
–.083**
(.031)
–.148***
(.033)
–.018
(.032)
.—
–.039
(.057)
–.093**
(.033)
–.072*
(.029)
–.068*
(.034)
.—
.018
(.035)
.307***
(.050)
.260**
(.097)
.016***
(.001)
.020
(.037)
.313***
(.052)
.266**
(.104)
.017***
(.001)
.018
(.038)
.310***
(.053)
.263**
(.104)
.017***
(.001)
.030
(.039)
.477***
(.054)
.339***
(.096)
.013***
(.001)
.014
(.009)
–.054*
(.023)
.018***
(.006)
.015
(.009)
–.057*
(.023)
.017**
(.006)
.030*
(.012)
–.059
(.031)
.003
(.006)
–.027***
(.005)
–.014*
(.006)
Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:55:03
—Catholic
—Protestant
—Non-Christian
.335***
(.041)
.631***
(.080)
.646***
(.116)
—Church attendance
.018
(.035)
.305***
(.050)
.259**
(.097)
.016***
(.001)
Level-2 Variables:
—GDP/capita
.—
.—
—Level of democracy
.—
.—
—Average church attendance
.—
.—
.011
(.009)
–.051*
(.023)
.—
.—
.—
.—
.—
.137***
.385***
.—
.138***
.294***
.004***
.124***
.307***
.004***
.123***
.234***
.004***
.127***
.231***
.004***
.301***
.396***
.036***
.—
.052***
.052***
.053***
.030***
.043***
Cross-Level Interactions:
—Average church attendance ⫻
——Church attendance (⫻100)
Variance components:
—Level-2 variance
—Level-3 variance
—Random effect Church
——attendance level-2 (⫻1000)
—Random effect Church
——attendance level-3 (⫻1000)
Note: Numbers in parentheses are robust standard errors. N1 = 117,007; N2 = 96; N3 = 53.
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).
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202—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
the effect of church attendance varies over
men, this difference was not visible in model
1.
countries and waves. It can be calculated that
When we add GDP per capita and level of
the most frequent churchgoers are—depending
democracy in model 3, all other effects are
on the specific country-wave combination—
virtually unchanged. The effect of level of
between 1.2 (exp(104*.002)) to 24.7
democracy is contrary to the theoretical expec(exp(104*.031)) times more likely to volunteer
tation. People appear to volunteer more in less
than people who never go to church.15 This
democratic societies. This contradicts findmeans that, at one extreme, church attendance
ings by Halman (2003) and Parboteeah et al.
does not influence volunteering much; in those
(2004). Halman finds a positive effect for years
countries, frequently attending church does
of continuous democracy as well as political
not really increase the probability to volunteer.
rights (subscale of the Gastil Index used here).
At the other extreme, church attendance has a
However, his analysis is restricted to European
strong impact on volunteering; in those councountries (a subset of the dataset we use) and
tries, frequent churchgoers are much more
he does not distinguish individual level from
likely to volunteer than people who do not go
contextual level effects. Consequently, the
to church at all.
smaller variation in level of democracy in his
After controlling for church attendance, the
dataset as well as compositional differences
effect of church membership drops considerbetween the countries could distort his results.
ably. The expected probability to volunteer is
Parboteeah et al. find a significant positive
the same for Catholics and nonreligious peoeffect of degree of liberal democracy as well,
ple who attend church equally often.16 The
but their analysis is also restricted to a smalleffects for Protestants and non-Christians are
er sample of countries.17 We do not find a sigstill substantial but half as strong as in model
nificant effect of economic development.18
1. Apparently, the differences in volunteering
This is in line with Curtis et al. (2001) and
to :
between religious and nonreligious Delivered
people areby Ingenta
Halman (2003), but contradicts Parboteeah et
University of Groningen
for a large part due to differencesFri,
in church
(2004).
29 Feb 2008al.10:55:03
attendance. This supports Hypothesis 2.
Model 4 shows that the national religious
However, not all differences between the relicontext has an additional positive effect. People
gious denominations disappear. Even after
living in the most devout country are, accordcontrolling for church attendance, Protestants
ing to the model, almost four times
are still more likely to volunteer than Catholics,
(exp(69.74*.018)/exp(2.13*.018)) more likewhich supports Hypothesis 3. The parameter
ly to volunteer than people living in the most
estimates of all control variables, except the
secular country. This supports Hypothesis 5.
Consequently, people who never visit church
one for sex, do not change much. Women are
slightly less active in volunteer work than men.
Because they visit church more often than
dence for such a curvilinear effect. However, because
it resulted only in a slight adjustment of the expected probabilities to volunteer, we decided not to present it in our models. The additional analyses are
available upon request.
15 This calculation is based on the fact that the estimated beta parameter is assumed to be normally distributed. Therefore, 95 percent of all beta parameters
are between ± 1.96 times the standard deviation. So,
.016 ± 1.96 ⫻ (.000004+.000052).5 gives a range of
[.002 ; .031].
16 In our large dataset we have a considerable number of people who say that they do not belong to a
church but still visit church often (table available
upon request).
17 To test whether our larger sample with more variation in level of democracy causes us to find a negative effect of level of democracy contrary to findings
by Halman (2003) and Parboteeah et al. (2004), we
reestimated model 5A on two subsets of countries.
Our sample has 31 and 16 countries in common with
the analyses of Halman and Parboteeah et al. respectively. Indeed, results from these subsets differed
considerably from model 5A. The sign of the effect
of level of democracy was positive but it did not
reach significance in both subsets. Other modeling
differences were probably the reason why the effects
in these subsets did not reach significance.
18 We also checked whether an increase of national wealth matters more for poor countries than for
richer countries by including a quadratic term. Again,
no significant results were found.
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RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–203
Figure 1. Effect of Church Attendance on General Volunteering
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University of Groningen
Fri, 29probFeb 2008added
10:55:03
to the model is in line with a dynamic
but live in a devout country have a higher
interpretation. We agree that this is not strong
ability to volunteer than similar people in secevidence, but we lack the data to provide a
ular societies. The voluntary participation of
more rigorous test. However, if the dynamic
these nonreligious people is, in effect, elevatinterpretation holds, declining volunteer rates
ed in more devout countries. A dynamic intershould not come as a surprise when societies
pretation of this result would imply that change
continue to secularize.
in the national religious context causes change
In model 5, we test whether the effect of
in volunteer rates.19 Unfortunately, the World
church attendance varies with the national reliValues Survey data are not really suitable for
gious context. As can be seen, the effect of
a trend analysis to test this claim because the
church attendance is smaller in more devout
number of items on voluntary associations difcountries. This implies that the differences
fers over the survey waves. This has unknown
between secular and devout people are subconsequences for the estimation of volunteer
stantially smaller in religious countries than in
rates based on items that remained the same
secular countries. This corroborates Hypothesis
over all waves. Besides, for half the countries
6. The effects of the religious context and the
only one survey wave is available. However, the
cross-level interaction are depicted in Figure
fact that not only variance at level 3 but also
1. This graph shows that church attendance
variance at level 2 declines (albeit only marbarely affects general volunteering in the most
ginally) when average church attendance is
devout country, whereas the impact is strongly positive in the most secular society. The
interaction effect suggests that religious peo19 We stress that this is a ceteris paribus arguple who live in secularizing countries might
mentation. Not only new predictors might become relbecome more active in volunteering. So, if the
evant in the future, but declining volunteer rates
dynamic interpretation of the national relicaused by secularization might also to some extent
gious context effect and the cross-level interbe compensated by for example rising levels of eduaction effect holds, increased civic
cation.
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204—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
participation of religious people might compensate for the secularization effect.20
In order to test whether these effects exist only
for specific organizations, we estimated separate models for all seven types of organizations.
Although we do not present these seven separate models here, it should be stressed that for
all but one type of organization, we found both
religious context and cross-level interaction
effects (results available from author upon
request). Only for trade unions, neither individual church attendance nor the national religious context affected volunteering.
find a negative though nonsignificant effect for
democracy. They argue that their effects might
reach significance in a larger sample; a claim
we are unable to support.
SPILLOVER
For the test of the spillover hypothesis we estimate different models, which are displayed in
Table 4. Although model 6 looks quite similar
to model 3 in Table 3, we change two aspects.
First, the dependent variable under consideration is now nonreligious volunteering. Second,
we change the reference category for church
membership to Protestants in order to test
MEMBERSHIPS VERSUS VOLUNTEERING
whether the spillover effect is smaller for
In order to examine whether determinants of
Protestants than for other denominations.
voluntary memberships differ from the ones
From model 6 it follows that people from
we find for volunteering, we reestimate model
different denominations (the nonreligious
5A for voluntary memberships. Results are disincluded) are equally involved in volunteering
played in the last column of Table 3 (model
for nonreligious organizations when control5B). Although some effects differ, similarities
ling for church attendance. Consequently, all
at level 1 are striking. When we turn to level 2
residual denominational differences in model 3
however, some substantial differences stand out.
(Table 3) are caused by differences in religious
Levels of voluntary memberships are not at all
volunteering.
to :
affected by the national religiousDelivered
context.by Ingenta
In model 7, we include religious volunteer
Apparently, these looser ties to civicUniversity
organiza- of Groningen
as a predictor for nonreligious volunteerFri,context,
29 Feb 2008work
10:55:03
tions are not influenced by the religious
ing. It has a strong positive effect. People who
whereas the stronger ties of volunteers are. This
are involved in religious volunteering are almost
fits the network theory, because getting people
3.6 (exp(1.281)) times more likely to do nonto volunteer requires more recruitment effort
religious volunteer work as well. This is in line
than just signing someone up. For memberwith the spillover Hypothesis 4a. Although we
ships, economic development appears to be
cannot be sure that participation in religious
important though. In more prosperous societies
volunteering actually causes people to start volpeople are more likely to join voluntary assounteering for other organizations as well, we
ciations. The fact that we do not find this effect
believe that if spillover really happens, the direcfor volunteering is in accordance with Putnam’s
tion of causation seems most plausible. Because
(2000) claim that ‘checkbook memberships’
most volunteer work is done for religious organmight have risen in Western societies. In affluizations, it is unlikely that the direction is the
ent societies more people are just nominal memother way around.
bers of voluntary organizations without being
When Catholics volunteer for religious organactively involved in volunteering. Again, we
izations,
they are, compared to Protestants, more
find a negative effect of level of democracy,
likely
to
do
nonreligious volunteer work as well.
which is contrary to findings by Curtis et al.
Model 8A shows that Catholics who are active
(2001). However, it does not reach significance.
in religious volunteering are over 4
Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas (2001) also
(exp(1.059+.351)) times more likely to volunteer for nonreligious organizations than
Catholics who are not volunteering for reli20 Although, we have three surveys over the perigious organizations. For Protestants, this
od 1981–2001 for some countries, the parameter
spillover effect is considerably smaller, which
estimate for the interaction effect is based predomiis in accordance with Hypothesis 4b. Protestants
nantly on differences between countries. This makes
who are active in religious volunteering, are
the empirical support for the dynamic interpretation
almost 3 (exp(1.059)) times more likely to do
of the cross-level interaction effect less strong.
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RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–205
Table 4. Hierarchical Logistic Regression Models for NRV and NRV Memberships
NRV
Model 6
Intercept
Model 8B
–1.558*** –1.855*** –1.780***
(.074)
(.069)
(.067)
–.594***
(.094)
—Education
—Age
—Age-sq. (⫻100)
—Married (ref.)
—Cohabiting
—Divorced
—Widow
—Single
—Protestant (ref.)
—Catholics
—Non-Christian
NRV Memberships
Model 8A
Level-1 Variables:
—Sex (female = 1)
Model 7
–.161***
(.036)
.143***
(.007)
.064***
(.005)
–.063***
(.006)
.—
–.174***
(.038)
.143***
(.007)
.062***
(.006)
–.060***
(.006)
.—
–.176***
(.038)
.143***
(.007)
.062***
(.006)
–.060***
(.006)
.—
–.314***
(.031)
.138***
(.008)
.072***
(.005)
–.075***
(.006)
.—
–.134
(.066)
–.038
(.032)
–.160***
(.043)
.005
(.030)
.—
–.111
(.068)
–.015
(.032)
–.150**
(.047)
.015
(.029)
.—
–.111
(.068)
–.016
(.032)
–.150**
(.047)
.011
(.029)
.—
.031
(.054)
–.057
(.033)
–.128***
(.028)
–.049
(.032)
.—
–.038
(.042)
–.008
(.116)
.052
(.046)
.001
(.001)
1.059***
(.065)
.—
–.126***
(.034)
–.085
(.128)
.019
(.037)
–.002***
(.000)
.—
.069
Delivered –.032
by Ingenta to
:
(.037)
University(.038)
of Groningen
.018 10:55:03
.066
Fri, 29 Feb 2008
—Nonreligious
—Church attendance
—Religious volunteer work (yes = 1)
(.085)
–.007
(.044)
.006***
(.001)
.—
(.085)
.133**
(.048)
.001
(.001)
1.281***
(.074)
.—
—Membership religious organization (yes = 1)
.—
Level-1 Interactions:
—Catholic ⫻ Religious volunteer work
.—
.—
—Catholic ⫻ Membership religious organization
.—
.—
—Non-Christian ⫻ Religious volunteer work
.—
.—
—Non-Christian ⫻ Membership religious organization
.—
.—
—Nonreligious ⫻ Religious volunteer work
.—
.—
—Nonreligious ⫻ Membership religious organization .—
.—
Variance components:
—Level-2 variance
—Level-3 variance
—Random effect Church attendance level 2 (⫻1000)
—Random effect Church attendance level-3 (⫻1000)
.131***
.108***
.011***
.011***
.141***
.180***
.007***
.017***
.351***
(.087)
.—
.201
(.201)
.—
.270
(.155)
.—
.132***
.102***
.011***
.011***
.665***
(.044)
.—
.255***
(.058)
.—
.223
(.230)
.—
.020
(.080)
.220***
.353***
.001***
.015***
Note: Numbers in parentheses are robust standard errors. N1 = 117,007; N2 = 96; N3 = 53. NRV = nonreligious
volunteering.
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).
#2789-ASR 71:2 filename:71202-ruiter
206—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
nonreligious volunteer work than those who are
significant and in sign even opposed to what is
not active. Although the parameters for the nonexpected from the crowding-out hypothesis.
Christians and the nonreligious are positive,
However, this does not support the alternative
they do not reach significance. So, the spillover
interdependence theory either. Although
effect is equally strong for Protestants, nonSalamon and Sokolowski (2003) do find supChristians, and the nonreligious. This refutes
port for the interdependence theory, they conHypothesis 4b. We conclude that the spillover
trol neither for compositional differences
effect is stronger for Catholics than for the other
between the countries nor for possible condenominations.
founding factors at the country level. In our
Whether members of religious voluntary
analysis, most other parameters were similar to
organizations are also more likely to join nonthe ones from model 5A. However, the countries
religious voluntary organizations is tested in
for which we lacked welfare state expenditure
model 8B. We reestimate model 8A but replace
data were on average less democratic. Leaving
religious volunteer work with membership of a
them out of the analysis reduced the variance in
religious voluntary organization and change the
level of democracy considerably, which caused
dependent variable to nonreligious voluntary
the effect of level of democracy to be nonmemberships. Clearly, the spillover effect is not
significant.
limited to volunteering. Joining a nonreligious
voluntary organization is more likely among
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
members of religious voluntary organizations
than among nonmembers of religious volunIn this article, we study the impact of individtary organizations. Interestingly, it shows that
ual religiosity, the national religious context,
Catholics who are not a member of a religious
and their interplay on volunteering. Curtis et al.
voluntary organization are less likely to join
(2001) show in their general study on contexnonreligious voluntary organizations than
tual determinants of associational involvement
Delivered by Ingenta to :
Protestants. However, if they have joined
a
relithat working memberships (religious organizaUniversity of Groningen
gious voluntary organization, their chance
to
be
and unions excluded) vary with the nationFri, 29 Feb 2008tions
10:55:03
a member of a nonreligious organization is
al religious composition. We provide new
increased and even higher than that of
hypotheses about the influence of religion by
Protestants. Again, the spillover effect is lowest
combining previous research on social networks
for Protestants. Furthermore, the fact that we
and volunteering (Becker and Dhingra 2001;
find a small but negative effect for church attenBekkers 2003; Jackson et al. 1995; Lam 2002;
dance indicates that frequent churchgoers are
Musick, Wilson, and Bynum 2000; Park and
slightly less likely to join nonreligious voluntary
Smith 2000; Yeung 2004) with a study on the
organizations than those who rarely attend
impact of both parental religiosity and the
church. Note however, that this effect is connational religious context on individual relitrolled for membership of a religious voluntary
giosity (Kelley and De Graaf 1997). These new
organization, something for which the chance
hypotheses are tested on a large dataset conis in fact strongly increased by church attentaining information on volunteering for 53 coundance.
tries in the period 1981-2001.
This study not only demonstrates that frequent churchgoers volunteer more, it also shows
VOLUNTEERING AND THE WELFARE STATE
that there is an additional positive effect of
To test the crowding-out hypothesis, we added
devoutness of society: religious context matters.
social security expenditure to model 5A from
Interestingly, individual and contextual effects
Table 3. Because these data were unavailable for
strongly interact. The differences between sec11 countries, the analysis was limited to 104,555
ular and devout people are substantially smallrespondents distributed over 42 countries.21 The
er in religious countries than in secular
effect of welfare state expenditure was all but
countries. Our findings imply that individual
religiosity is hardly relevant for volunteering in
devout nations.
21 We do not present the results of this analysis in
Level of democracy affects volunteering, but
contrary to the expectation, people in less dema separate table; they are available upon request.
#2789-ASR 71:2 filename:71202-ruiter
RELIGIOSITY AND VOLUNTEERING—–207
ocratic societies volunteer more. We are not
Similarly, religious people have to invest more
sure how to interpret this result. One reason
in volunteering when a nation secularizes.
Furthermore, religious volunteering seems
might be that the less democratic societies
to have a strong spillover effect. This implies that
included in our dataset have less extensive welreligious people are also more involved in volfare states and therefore citizens of those coununteering for secular organizations. Consetries provide for certain public goods
quently, secularization could even cause
themselves. This explanation builds of course on
declining participation in secular organizations.
the crowding-out hypothesis, which we cannot
This spillover effect is strongest for Catholics.
corroborate in this study. We are unable to test
Unfortunately the World Values Survey data do
the explanation because welfare state expendinot allow us to distinguish specific groups of
tures for most of these countries are missing.
Protestants to test whether especially conserWe do not find significant effects for ecovative Protestants refrain from secular volunnomic development on volunteering. However,
teering as suggested by Wilson and Janoski
in our analysis on voluntary memberships GDP
(1995).
per capita shows a significant effect. In more
Without doubt, the quality of the data differs
prosperous societies, people join more organiover the 96 surveys involved in this study. For
zations. Because we do not find this effect for
this reason, we carefully tried to find countries
volunteering, it seems that checkbook memthat might be influential outliers. However,
berships are more common in wealthy nations
whatever country was excluded, we could not
(cf. Putnam 2000).
find substantial changes in our results. An analyIf secularization is an ongoing process in
sis on a subsection of the complete dataset to test
rich post-industrial societies, we expect declinthe welfare state hypothesis shows that the
ing levels of volunteering due to composition
results are robust. Keep in mind though that
and context effects. We find that differences
only 7 topercent
of the data population is nonover time are to some extent explained
by
difDelivered by Ingenta
:
Christian and that questions pertaining to reliferences in national religious context,
which of Groningen
University
gion
in the World Values Surveys might be
supports this expectation. Of course,
Fri,secular29 Feb 2008
10:55:03
better applicable to Christians than to nonization theory is contested (e.g., Iannaccone
Christians. Therefore, we cannot make strong
1998; Stark 1999; Stark and Finke 2000). Yet
claims with respect to non-Christian countries.
there is a large body of evidence showing that
However, we did a preliminary test to see
church attendance, an important indicator in
whether results are different for non-Christian
the secularization debate, has indeed been
countries. We reestimated model 5A with a
declining over the past decades in most rich
dummy variable for non-Christian countries
post-industrial countries (e.g., Norris and
included at level 3 as well as an cross-level
Inglehart 2004). Furthermore, the dynamic
interaction between this dummy and church
interpretation of our results implies that change
attendance at level 1.22 Results show that peoin the national religious context causes change
ple living in non-Christian countries volunteer
in volunteer rates. Although we are unable to
to the same extent as people in Christian counprovide strong evidence for this interpretation,
tries (results available from author upon
the results suggest that diminished civic involverequest). The effect of church attendance is only
ment goes hand in hand with ongoing secularslightly smaller in non-Christian societies. This
ization. However, the cross-level interaction
test is not ideal, but since the number of couneffect suggests that religious people who live in
tries participating in the World Values Surveys
secularizing countries might have an increased
increases with every wave, we hope that future
chance to volunteer. So, if the dynamic interpretation holds, increased volunteering of religious people could compensate for the
secularization effect. Interestingly, Kelley and
22 In India, Japan, Tanzania, and Turkey, the nonDe Graaf (1997) also show that family reliChristians form the largest group. For these countries
giosity is more important for the religiosity of
the dummy variable was set to 1. In all other counchildren in secular nations than in devout
tries, at least 75 percent of the population claims to
nations. In a secular context, parents have to
be either Protestant, Catholic, or nonreligious, and
invest more to keep their children religious.
therefore the dummy variable was set to 0.
#2789-ASR 71:2 filename:71202-ruiter
208—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
lijken.” Pp. 141–72 in Geven in Nederland 2003:
research can provide stronger tests for nonGiften, legaten, sponsoring en vrijwilligerswerk,
Christian countries as well.
edited by T. N. M. Schuyt. Houten/Mechelen,
In this study, we show that network theory
Netherlands: Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum.
especially provides important arguments for
Boraas, Stephanie. 2003. “Volunteerism in the United
predicting volunteering behavior of both reliStates.” Monthly Labor Review 126:3–11.
gious and nonreligious people. Network theoBrady, Henry E., Kay L. Schlozman, and Sidney
ry predicts that all people in devout countries
Verba. 1999. “Prospecting for Participants:
have more religious people within their social
Rational Expectations and the Recruitment of
networks. Consequently, nonreligious people
Political Activists.” American Political Science
should get to know more active religious peoReview 93:153–68.
Bryant, W. Keith, Haekyung Jeon-Slaughter, Hyojin
ple who could recruit them. Furthermore, in
Kang, and Aaron Tax. 2003. “Participation in
such networks the norm to volunteer could be
Philanthropic Activities: Donating Money and
stronger, as well as the social pressure to behave
Time.” Journal of Consumer Policy 26:43–73.
accordingly. Although we lack actual network
Bryk, Anthony S. and Stephen W. Raudenbush. 1992.
data, analyses of our large scale international
Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and
dataset show that national religiosity strongly
Data Analysis Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
affects volunteering behavior of nonreligious
Cnaan, Ram A., Amy Kasternakis, and Robert J.
people. Also, the impact of church attendance
Wineburg. 1993. “Religious People, Religious
on volunteering is much smaller in devout
Congregations, and Volunteerism in Human
Services: Is There a Link?” Nonprofit and
nations. Apparently, theoretical progress can be
Voluntary Sector Quarterly 22:33–51.
made for cross-national differences in volunCurtis, James E., Douglas E. Baer, and Edward G.
teering. Further research to test the actual
Grabb. 2001. “Nations of Joiners: Explaining
recruitment mechanisms in social networks
Voluntary Association Membership in Democratic
would require network data collection in interSocieties.” American Sociological Review
national surveys.
66:783–805.
Delivered by Ingenta
to :
Curtis, James E., Edward G. Grabb, and Douglas E.
University
of
Groningen
Stijn Ruiter is Junior Researcher at the Department
Baer. 1992. “Voluntary Association Membership
Fri, 29 Feb
of Sociology, Radboud University Nijmegen,
the 2008 10:55:03
Netherlands. At the Interuniversity Center for Social
Science Theory and Methodology (ICS), he is currently writing his Ph.D. thesis on individual and contextual influences on volunteering.
Nan Dirk De Graaf is Professor at the Department
of Sociology, Radboud University Nijmegen, the
Netherlands, and chairman of the Interuniversity
Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology
(ICS). His main research interests are sociology of
religion, social stratification, and the political and
cultural consequences of social mobility and mixed
marriages. He is one of the principal investigators of
the Family Surveys of the Dutch Population 1998,
2000, and 2003, and the Religion in Dutch Society
2005 survey.
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