Age Is But a Number? An Exploration of Age Differences in Episodic Volunteering

Abstract

Abstract Age has long been understood as a strong demographic determinant of volunteering. However, to date, limited literature exists on the episodic volunteer experience of different age groups, the impact of such episodic volunteer experiences, and why some individuals are motivated to volunteer episodically. Given this scarcity of research on age and episodic volunteering, the paper presents research examining age and episodic volunteering. Specifically, we studied age differences in three different aspects of episodic volunteering: the motivation to volunteer at a one-time event; the volunteer experience; and the volunteer post-event evaluation. In each of these aspects, we examined similarities and differences among six different age groups in a population of 2270 episodic volunteers from six countries. The research contributes to a better understanding of the significance of age in episodic volunteering, the ways in which people perform episodic volunteering at different ages, and the impact of these volunteer activities.