Comparing Voluntary Activities Among Immigrant and Non-immigrant. Focus on Third Country Nationals

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to compare the involvement in voluntary organizations of two non-EU groups of students (of former-Yugoslavian and of Cape Verdean immigrant background) with their EU and native counterparts in Luxembourg. In this comparison, we aim to account for the fact students with a non-EU background differ systematically from other youth groups in their observable characteristics. The propensity score matching method is used to account for selection into particular groups by making compared groups similar to each other for a wide range of observed characteristics. Our results reveal that students with a former-Yugoslavian immigrant background exhibit no substantial differences from similar (i.e., matched) natives. However, this group demonstrates substantially higher engagement in some types of voluntary organizations than students with a Portuguese or a French immigrant background. Cape Verdeans are less engaged in many voluntary organizations than natives and students with an EU-immigrant background. The exception for both non-EU groups concerns engagement with organizations campaigning for an issue.