The Enduring Influence of Parent's Voluntary Involvement on Their Children's Volunteering in Later Life

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of parent's voluntary involvement on their children's volunteering in later life, and examines the degree to which this effect persists across older age cohorts. To accomplish this, we make use of retrospective questions from the 2010 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating that ask respondents about their experiences in their school-age years. The results show that parental voluntary involvement is positively related to adult voluntary participation, and that the effect of parental voluntary involvement on later volunteerism appears to persist well into adulthood. The implications of these findings for volunteering in Canada are discussed.