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Volunteering, subjective well-being and public policy

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  • Binder, Martin
  • Freytag, Andreas

Abstract

We apply matching estimators to the large-scale British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set to estimate the impact of volunteering on subjective well-being. We take into account personality traits that could jointly determine volunteering behaviour and subjective well-being. We find that the impact of regular volunteering on subjective well-being is positive and increasing over time if regular volunteering is sustained. In a quantile analysis, we find that this effect seems to be driven by reducing the unhappiness of the less happy quantiles of the well-being distribution for those who volunteer regularly. We test the robustness of our findings and discuss their relevance for public policy.

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  • Binder, Martin & Freytag, Andreas, 2013. "Volunteering, subjective well-being and public policy," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 97-119.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:34:y:2013:i:c:p:97-119
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.11.008
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    2223; 3000; Volunteering; Subjective well-being; Personality; Public policy; BHPS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

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