Why do unemployed people volunteer less?
Unemployment can be a tragic phase in many people’s lives, since losing income and a workplace affects our financial, physical, and social conditions. It can also affect personal self-esteem, and even cause shame and embarrassment. Accordingly, getting back to work is not just driven by financial motivations, but also represents an effort to restore your self-identity and social connections. It is a struggle to ‘get yourself back’: to own your social capital and regain your sense of accomplishment.
However, this process can be daunting, since you might have to overcome discouraging personal obstacles to get back to the job market. Volunteering is often mentioned as an excellent way for unemployed individuals to utilize their suddenly free time. Supposedly, it is ‘cost-effective’ to use this time for meaningful and effective activities, such as volunteering. In fact, many people expect their unemployed friends to focus on volunteering. Simply put, their argument goes, now that you have the time, skills, and passion to do something meaningful, why don’t you volunteer, gain expertise, and get to know other people in your community?
It’s true that volunteering offers significant physical and psychological advantages. Numerous studies have shown how volunteering can be good for your body and brain. More specifically, unemployed individuals can benefit by learning or improving professional skills, getting more experience, receiving recommendations, and creating professional networking opportunities. The media often uses these rational and functional frames: the common narrative showcases smiling unemployed volunteers, saying they are grateful for the mere opportunity to learn and connect with their community. This frame also presents volunteering as a healing process, a way for the unemployed to get over their vulnerable and allegedly unhealthy status to become productive and contributing citizens.
The Volunteer Gap
Despite the fact that unemployed individuals have more time to volunteer, and the common narrative that they would benefit more, research actually shows that unemployed individuals volunteer LESS than individuals who work part-time or full-time jobs. Consider this chart based on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data about recent volunteering patterns in the US:
This data clearly demonstrates the continuing gap between employed and unemployed individuals’ volunteering rates. As you can see, employed individuals, even those with full-time jobs, volunteer more than unemployed individuals. For example, in 2015 23.3% of unemployed individuals volunteered, compared with nearly 31.1% of part-time employees and more than 26.3% of full-time employees.
How can we explain this gap? Well, the short answer is that things are always more complicated in real life crises. The workplace is a platform that provides social resources for employees. Having a job fosters social integration, which in turn encourages volunteering. For example, such social networks offer employees to volunteer as part of unorganized groups, offer them the opportunity to donate, and learn about non-profits. All these social interactions strengthen our social capital, by helping us bond with other members of our professional and personal communities.
By contrast, unemployment tends to create social isolation, as unemployed individuals lose their bridging and bonding social ties with their former colleagues. This lack of social ties may explain why unemployed people tend to have lower civic engagement and political participation. For a start, the social isolation is a barrier to participation in social activities, since it makes it difficult for unemployed individuals to learn about new opportunities.
Stopping the Social Capital Free Fall
As I suggested earlier, losing one’s workplace can foster many negative emotional effects, such as feelings of disconnection, shame, and embarrassment. The resulting sense of insecurity, along with the difficulty of finding a new job, can cause unemployed individuals to feel they have nothing left to give to other people.
Putting yourself out there and volunteering is a public act, involving social interactions that are not necessarily within easy reach for individuals who are already struggling with self-confidence. Simply put, volunteering can be easier said than done when you are coping with the loss of your social capital.
As nonprofit professionals, we should care about these challenges for two main reasons: because it’s important to talk about the challenges and difficulties of unemployment, and because unemployed individuals can be invaluable volunteers for nonprofits — not to mention talented future employees for many businesses.
Especially for organizations that emphasize a particular professional field, recruiting unemployed individuals is a win-win situation: volunteers can increase their social capital and social integration, while nonprofits can enjoy dedicated and skilful volunteers who already share the community’s interests. To do that, nonprofits should understand both the physical and the emotional aspects of the struggles unemployed individuals face. Understanding this is an important step in developing effective and attractive calls to volunteer.
Attracting Unemployed Individuals as Volunteers
The call to volunteer should highlight the opportunity to meet new people and expand the volunteers’ social interactions and networking. At the same time, it should subtly address their concerns and self-doubts. Depending on the organization’s needs, the call could address volunteers with specific skills, and acknowledge their experience and expertise. Non-profits can communicate this by focusing on the benefits of volunteering in a specific project, echoing the cost-effective approach, rather than the emotional one. Alternately, it could offer an ‘open heart and mind’ approach to volunteering, welcoming all participants regardless of profession or skills.
The best way to recruit people who suffer from social isolation and self-doubt, however, is through interpersonal connections. The ‘bring your friends’ approach, based on creating direct, personal, and friendly connections with potential volunteers, is always effective. A personal connection will signal to the unemployed individuals that your organization sees them as interesting and important people, and that you are genuinely interested in what they have to offer.
Finally, your call can emphasize connections between volunteering and future employment. Unemployed individuals who volunteer are often excellent candidates for future paying jobs: they clearly demonstrate their skills and commitment while volunteering and searching for a job, which makes them significant and promising candidates.
Businesses that are developing their corporate social responsibility agendas should develop joint initiatives with nonprofits in their fields, perhaps working directly with unemployed individuals to help them acquire new skills and experience.
This kind of cooperation can result in engaging with excellent skilled candidates on several different levels, while still developing the firm’s corporate responsibility identity.
