This award funds the collection of data on volunteering from families participating in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The PSID is a longitudinal study of a representative sample of US individuals and the family units in which they reside. This award funds the following specific activities: (1) programming and testing of survey questions about participant's philanthropic volunteer activities; (2) administering the new survey questions to approximately 9,150 PSID families via a computer assisted telephone interview; (3) cleaning, processing and documenting the data for public release and archiving the data for release via the PSID's Data Center.
The broader impacts of research using these data include better insights into when, whether, and how volunteer activities improve US communities.
1. SPECIFIC GOALS OF PROJECT The percentage of Americans who volunteer to support community organizations and the number of hours they spend is foundational information for the voluntary sector. Policymakers, nonprofit organizations, and scholars all use accurate findings about volunteering to inform and strengthen their work. However, since Independent Sector ceased annual surveys in the 1990s, regular national estimates of volunteering and giving behavior have not been produced. Additionally, the lack of consistent, longitudinal volunteering data inhibits any rigorous evaluation of the relationship between public policy changes and volunteering rates. The main goal of the project is to collect information on volunteering from approximately 9,123 families of the 2011 longitudinal sample of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). A 1.5 minute question module on volunteering will be administered. The PSID is a longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families that began in 1968. With primary sponsorship from NSF for data collected on the same families and their descendents, the PSID can justly be considered a cornerstone of the data infrastructure for empirically based social science research in the U.S. Carrying out the aims proposed here by collecting information from these families who have participated in the PSID is advantageous for the following reasons. First, a high annual continuation rate is critical to the success of a long panel study such as the PSID. In recent waves, the study has achieved unprecedented wave-to-wave response rates in the range of 96-98% which is of critical importance to maintaining the national representativeness of the sample and response rate. 2. DATA COLLECTION FOR 2011 PSID Data collection for 2011 PSID started on March 3rd and is scheduled to continue through mid-December 2011. As of December 15th, 97% of goal was completed with 8,855 interviews. The goal is to complete 9,123 interviews, with an overall response rate of 95%, and reinterview response rate of 97%. The 2011 PSID contains volunteering questions directly funded by NSF grant ID # 1063540. 3. PRODUCT: Journal Articles analyzing PSID volunteering data Nesbit, R. A. (2011). A discussion of the differences in volunteering rates in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Current Population Survey, and the Independent Sector Volunteering Studies. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 21(4), Summer 2011, 417-432. Rotolo, T., Wilson, J., & Hughes, M. E. (2010). Homeownership and volunteering: An alternative approach to studying social inequality and civic engagement. Sociological Forum, 25(3), September 2010, 570-587. Nesbit, R. (2010). A Comparison of Volunteering Data in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Current Population Survey. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 39(4), August 2010, 753-761. Nesbit, R. (2010). The influence of major life events on volunteering. Working paper series. Center for Nonprofit Strategy and management, The City University of New York. Public Access to Data Extracts The Center on Philanthropy will be preparing easy-to-use data extracts of the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS) module of the PSID on giving and volunteering for the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) in fall of 2011. These datasets will contain detailed information on the demographic characteristics and charitable giving and volunteering activities of families in the 2005, 2007 and 2009 waves of the PSID, and will be available freely to users of the ARDA. 4. CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS Brown, E., & Zhang, Y. (2010, November). Household production and volunteering. Paper presented at ARNOVA Conference, Alexandria, VA. Osili, U. O., Brown, M., & Wu, K. (2010, November). Black and white: An exploration of simultaneity of giving and volunteering in the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study 2005. Paper presented at ARNOVA Conference, Alexandria, VA. Osili, U. O., Wu, K., & Yoshioka, C. (2010, November). Senior volunteering behavior: Comparing AIM Giving and Volunteering Survey and Center on Philanthropy Panel Study 2005. Paper presented at ARNOVA Conference, Alexandria, VA. Zhang, Y. (2010, November). Beyond Carnegie: Inheritance and volunteer labor supply. Paper presented at ARNOVA Conference, Alexandria, VA.
