Work and Volunteering: The Long Arm of the Job

Abstract

The impact of work on social life is a major concern of sociologists. Marx and Durkheim both believed that jobs have consequences for workers' lives outside the workplace, and subsequent research byKohn, Wilensky, and others confirms that complex and self-directedjobs encourage social participation. We use this spillover theory to predict volunteering among respondents to the Americans' Changing Lives survey (1986-89). Occupational self-direction increases volunteering, especially among the better educated, a result of the civic skills provided. Net of self-direction, situs and occupational differences in volunteering are alsofound. Public sector workers volunteer the most. Within each sector, higher-status occupations volunteer more. The results suggest that, ifpriority is to be given to maintaining a volunteer laborpool, it would be unwise to ignore social trends limiting occupational self-direction at work or reducing the size of the public sector. Sociologists have long been concerned with the impact of work and work organizations on social life. Marx argued that capitalist relations of production, and the labor process demanded by them, have powerfil consequences for workers'