Determinants of sports volunteering and sports volunteer time in England

Abstract

This article uses the largest available data set in the United Kingdom to identify the determinants of the decision to volunteer in sport and the amount of time contributed to it. Sport in England relies heavily on volunteers for delivery of participation, which is important for government policy, particularly the Big Society and especially in an environment of public expenditure cuts. Yet intelligence on the nature of sports volunteering is limited. Previous descriptions from national surveys of volunteers in sport have not addressed the independent effects of the demographic and socio-economic variables concerned, nor the distinction between numbers of volunteers and the time they give. This study remedies both shortcomings, analysing national survey data to identify significant influences on both the decision to volunteer and the time given. It identifies significant variations in the expected volunteering rate by gender, age, ethnicity, education, income and the number and age of dependent children. With respect to the time given to sports volunteering, there are significant variations by gender, age and employment status but conspicuously not by education and income. A policy dilemma is that targeting those most likely to volunteer and give time would reinforce existing inequalities in sports volunteering.