Young People in Scotland Survey: Volunteering analysis

Volunteer Scotland’s fourth survey of young people investigating their engagement with volunteering, which is based on data from Ipsos’ omnibus survey of secondary school pupils across Scotland.

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Volunteer Scotland has recently published the fourth survey of young people investigating their engagement with volunteering, which is based on data from Ipsos’ omnibus survey of secondary school pupils across Scotland.

Formal and informal youth volunteering participation rates have declined significantly, down by 17 and 15 percentage points respectively. However, the experience across demographic groups has varied considerably:

Another worrying finding was the decline in benefits which young people derive from volunteering, both health and wellbeing, and career/skills benefits.

However, the results are not all doom and gloom. Young people still managed to contribute 9.7 million formal volunteering hours in 2022 with a participation rate of 37%,  10 percentage points higher than the adult formal volunteering participation rate of 27% in 2021. This is a credit to the contribution of Scotland’s young people and, one could argue, is a testament to how resilient youth volunteering has been over the last three very challenging years.