Volunteerism Research

I use a volunteer process model to organize a review of recent research on volunteerism, focusing mainly on journal articles reporting survey research results. Scholars from several different disciplines and countries have contributed to a body of work that is becoming more theoretically sophisticated and methodologically rigorous. The first stage of the process model—antecedents of volunteering—continues to attract the most attention but more and more scholars are paying attention to the third stage, the consequences of volunteering, particularly with respect to health benefits. The middle stage—the experience of volunteering—remains somewhat neglected, particularly the influence of the social context of volunteer work on the volunteer’s satisfaction and commitment.