The economic nature and value of volunteer activity in Canada

Abstract

Recent concerns with the quality of life have led economists to investigation of activities outside the market and beyond GNP, among them household work, volunteer services, and student time investment. The present study focuses upon volunteer activities, delineating at the outset the boundary between economic and non-economic types of volunteer action. Our main concern is to analyze what economic volunteer services are, and to estimate their dollar value. A scheme is proposed to classify volunteer actions as to their economic and non-economic aspects, isolating those that are economic in nature. This last group, Economic Volunteer Services (EVS) is further classified by type of function (Health, Education, etc.) and the scheme is illustrated by reference to a sample of 322 volunteer agencies. In addition a second scheme of classification is developed for the particular ESV jobs or tasks performed by volunteers, and this scheme is illustrated with a sample of 5334 volunteer requests made to the Metro Toronto Volunteer Centre. The analysis of agency types show that the major users of volunteers are Health and Rehabilitation centres, and Neighbourhood Multi-Service Agencies. Analysis by types of jobs reveals that Supervision and Friendly Visiting are the major ones; adding to this Parole Counselling, Child Care, Clerical Work, and Driving, one accounts for about 60% of all volunteer actions. Fifteen other groups of jobs account for the remaining 40%. The average work assignment in all agencies and jobs is 5.0 hours per week, varying from a high of 7.0 in Friendly Visiting and Co-ordination tasks, to a low of 2.0 for Teaching and Therapy Assistance. Variation by agency type is found to be far greater.

The value of such volunteer work is then estimated and found to be, for the sample used, about $800 per annum per volunteer in 1971. A conservative estimate of the numbers of volunteers doing EVS places this value in the aggregate at 1% of GNP; an upper bound estimate for volunteer involvement makes the aggregate 3%. Finally, the study analyzes the availability of data in Canada on voluntarism, and concludes that there is very little hard data; in particular, there is not a single comprehensive census or even a national survey to serve as a benchmark. We note also, however, that there exists a good potential network for compiling such information, namely the Volunteer Centres or Bureaus in most Urban areas.