Dr. Svea Closser of Middlebury College, in collaboration with Dr. Kenneth Maes of Oregon State University, will undertake research to advance understanding of the effects of volunteering on individuals' psycho-social well-being. Many poor countries rely heavily on unpaid and low-paid labor for internationally funded health-development projects. Low-level, underpaid work is often thought to be exploitative and demoralizing, but health-development project planners often claim that low-level employment and volunteerism in this sector bolster workers' psychological well-being and social status. Although studies conducted in western contexts provide support for links among altruistic behavior (including volunteering), social status, and mental well-being, these links have not been rigorously examined in non-western, low-income contexts. This research will test these links in one such context: Ethiopia.
Using social science methods such as interviews, document analysis, participant observation, and survey methods, this study will address three main questions: (1) What material and immaterial benefits do low-level workers in Ethiopia seek through providing their labor to health-development projects? (2) To what extent and in what ways do social respect and mental or spiritual satisfaction accrue to poor, low-status workers? (3) How do assumptions that low-level workers gain such benefits function to justify forms of unpaid and low-paid employment, from the varied perspectives of international donor organizations and project implementers, local government officials, and workers themselves?
To answer these questions, the project will focus on a rural health-development project in Ethiopia that aims to improve maternal and newborn survival, and that connects one of the wealthiest donor organizations in the world with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and Ethiopian community health workers. The project will thus examine labor policies and the experiences and well-being of workers within a global health-development economy that links international, national, and local actors.
The potential broader impacts of this research are quite substantial and include strengthening collaborations with Ethiopian scholars, providing research experiences to U.S. undergraduates, who will accompany the PIs to the field, and providing information to policymakers and officials in organizations that utilize volunteer labor. This project was supported by the Cultural Anthropology Program and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.
