In 2024, Volunteer Scotland’s research pieced together a detailed picture of volunteering in Scotland. Their latest blog and report reveal five key insights, challenges and urgent actions needed.
Last year was busy for Volunteer Scotland’s research team. They completed in-depth analysis of the 2022 and 2023 Scottish Household Survey data on volunteer participation, wrote three bulletins about the impact of the cost of living crisis on the Third Sector, published doctoral research on volunteering and associational life, shared findings from a literature review of employer supported volunteering, and commissioned research on the social value of volunteering in Scotland.
Each piece of research is part of a jigsaw puzzle that makes up a picture of volunteering in Scotland. Volunteer Scotland has written a report that draws together all this research and presents five headlines about the state of volunteering in Scotland today.
The Scottish Household Survey reveals that 335,000 people stopped volunteering between 2019 and 2023 which means that there are fewer volunteers for third sector organisations to draw upon to meet increased demand for core services.
Evidence from multiple sources points to the cost of living crisis making it harder for people in Scotland to volunteer. The cost of living crisis s is chipping away at people’s mental wellbeing and resilience as well as making it harder for people to justify the time and expense of participating in leisure activities, which the evidence shows are a crucial pathway into volunteering.
With the decline in volunteer participation, more and more people are missing out on the wellbeing benefits they can experience through volunteering. And, it is often the people who benefit most from volunteering who are missing out, particularly people living with a disability and those with poor physical or mental health.
The gap between volunteer participation in Scotland’s least and most deprived areas is getting smaller, but it is not clear whether this is driven by positive social changes. The evidence shows that the relationship between deprivation and volunteering is complex, and while the gap is closing there are more questions to consider for ensuring that volunteering is a positive experience for people across all of Scotland’s communities
There have been multiple shifts in the demographic profile of Scotland’s volunteers, including a decline in volunteering among males, ethnic minorities and working age adults. The report explores the potential impact of this on future volunteering among retired adults.