Cuts to local government funding have contributed to a “postcode lottery” in volunteering opportunities for young people, a report says.
The place where someone grows up “powerfully determines” the level of support they get to volunteer with charities, according to research published today by the Institute for Community Studies.
The report Volunteering Journeys, which was funded by the government, says austerity measures, the Covid-19 pandemic and “job-market changes due to Brexit” all contributed to a “blurring” in the relationship between paid work and both formal and informal volunteering.
Discussing unequal access to volunteering according to where someone lives in the UK, the report says: “This – in part – highlights how reductions in local government funding over the past decade had a significant impact on the provision of youth services.”
It says: “A ‘postcode lottery’ now exists; the place young people grow up in powerfully determines if and how they are supported to volunteer.”
The report notes that about 50 per cent of people between 16 and 30 do some volunteering with charities and other groups, with one-third volunteering regularly.
These formal volunteers are more likely to be female than male, and more likely to be white and from better-off backgrounds.
But informal volunteering, including caring for family members, plays “a larger role in the lives of traditionally excluded or socially discriminated-against groups”, the report says.
ICS recommends that organisations involved in volunteering, including the charity sector and the government, should find a “common language” for discussing opportunities with young people, as well as moving beyond viewing volunteering as an opportunity just to boost employment chances.
The report also says that volunteering opportunities should be linked to how young people experience their lives at different times, rather than a static offer at any one time.
The reports says: “The pandemic has emphasised the distinctive resilience of ‘Generation Covid’, particularly their ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and their willingness to participate at home, their places of education, in their communities, and online.”
Emily Morrison, head of the Institute for Community Studies, said: “The hybrid ways in which young people participate in volunteering, their motivations for engaging with it, and the barriers they face, have changed significantly over the years.
“We need to develop policies and support frameworks that acknowledge and respond to this if we are to grow a sustained volunteering base for the future, and if we are to maximise the benefits of volunteering to young people as individuals, to their local communities and to society more broadly.”
The study was based on workshops with 20 organisations involved in volunteering and YouGov polling of more than 2,500 young people, as well as a review of existing research.