Abstract
Because of the federalized structure of Belgium, sports volunteering is a complex policy issue. On the one hand, sports participation has been a Flemish policy area since 1970, while on the other hand social security and thus volunteerism are a federal policy domain. Based on a representative sample for Flemish inhabitants aged 15-86, it was found that in 2014, 8.3% of the population indicated they had been a sports volunteer at least once during the past year, making sports the most popular sector for volunteers. The majority of the Flemish sports volunteers are male, middle-aged, and highly educated, have a high income, and are sports participants. The sports club sector is by far the preferred setting for sports volunteers, while their engagement can be episodic (44%) or continuous (56%). The numbers indicate that both the number and the proportion of volunteers have risen through the last decades. As the Belgian government has decided to extend the legislation about the remuneration of “leisure work” in 2018, numerous stakeholders will keep an eye on whether this will induce a change in sports volunteering in Flanders.
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Thibaut, E., Scheerder, J. (2018). Flanders (Belgium). In: Hallmann, K., Fairley, S. (eds) Sports Volunteers Around the Globe. Sports Economics, Management and Policy, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02354-6_3
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