Abstract
This study examines the impact of acculturation on Korean Americans’ decisions to volunteer either for secular and religious organizations or informally. The results show that language difficulty and Korean identity lower the likelihood of secular volunteering, but not of informal volunteering. Koreans who are Protestants or Catholics, and those with higher levels of education, are more likely to volunteer formally, but not informally. The findings indicate formal volunteering is strongly associated with acculturation factors, along with personal and social variables but informal volunteering appears to be independent from and not complementary of the other two types of volunteering.
Highlights
This study examines the impact of acculturation on Korean Americans’ decisions to volunteer either for secular and religious organizations or informally
Little is known about the factors that facilitate or hinder Asian American volunteering, as very few studies have focused on their volunteering behavior (Eckland & Park, 2005; Sundeen, Garcia, & Wang, 2007)
For Korean Americans, we expect acculturation factors to impact the level of activity in informal volunteering that helps family, friends and neighbors
Summary
This study examines the impact of acculturation on Korean Americans’ decisions to volunteer either for secular and religious organizations or informally. Sundeen, Garcia, and Wang (2007) examined the formal volunteering of three Asian-American subgroups—Asian Indians, Chinese and Filipinos--and compared them with the immigrants of each subgroup of diverse volunteering activities, using a national survey on volunteering. It is unclear whether Korean Americans would share a similar pattern of volunteering with any of the Asian subgroups that Sundeen, Garcia and Wang studied: for example, the types of organizations for which they volunteer ; how personal, social and cultural resources shape their volunteering; how many hours they volunteer, etc.
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