Party membership and charitable giving in China: the mediating role of resources, networks, prosocial values and making compulsory donations

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that Communist Party members in China are more likely to give and give more to charity than non-Party members, but why this is remains unclear. Using the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS, 2012), this article develops and tests hypotheses about the potential mechanisms that influence the relationship between Party membership and charitable giving. Uniquely, total charitable giving in China includes both voluntary and compulsory donations. Generalised structural equation modelling results indicate that Party members donate more overall, because they have higher levels of human resources, larger formal networks and higher prosocial values and are more likely to make compulsory donations than non-Party members. Interestingly, our results show that making compulsory donations crowds out voluntary giving. Therefore, Party members donate only marginally more than non-Party members in terms of voluntary giving.