Civil society, civic participation and volunteering – what is the relationship

Thomas P. Boje, Department of Social Sciences, Roskilde University, P. O Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark (boje@ruc.dk)

The aim of my paper is to discuss the impact of non-profit institutions and volunteering on citizenship, participation and welfare. The complementarily between public welfare institutions and non-profit institutions in providing social welfare is important in understanding the relationship between civic participation, social capital and volunteering in a given society.

In the paper I want to analyse this inter-relationship between public welfare institutions, non-profit institutions and volunteering and its impact on citizenship and participation in four Northern European welfare systems – Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The empirical sources for the study are data provided from two sources: the Johns Hopkins Study of the Non-profit sector and the ’Household, Flexibility and Work’ database. Both include data on participation in paid work, unpaid work and care in the four countries.

In summary the differences between the four countries can according to my analyses be phrased as follows:

• In the Dutch context, where non-profit organisations are stimulated to take on major civic participation, care work and volunteering become a central issue and a large number of women work on a voluntary basis in social services, health and education. In the Netherlands we find a combination of a large civil society sector and a relatively high level of civic participation – primarily among women.
• In a Scandinavian context non-profit organisations are also stimulated and play a significant role. The level of civic participation and volunteering is the highest in Europe. Care obligations have to a large extent been taken over by paid labour either in the public sector or in non-profit organisations but in both cases carried out by women as low-paid work. Civic involvement is primarily concentrated to the cultural and political sectors.
• The market-driven UK-economy is characterised by extremely long working hours, high level of employers-controlled flexibility and troubled conditions for combining work and family obligations. This situation has clearly a negative impact on civic participation and results in low level of voluntary activities despite a relatively large civil society sector. The overwhelming proportion working in the British non-profit organisations are paid employees.