• Care

• Spillovers

• Facilitating work life balance

Informal Volunteering and Socialization Effects: Examining Modelling and Encouragement by Parents and Partner More or less help? A longitudinal investigation of the positive and negative consequences of divorce for informal helping

Testing the Informal Care Model: Intrapersonal Change in Care Provision Intensity during the First Lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic More or less help? A longitudinal investigation of the positive and negative consequences of divorce for informal helping

Like many European countries, the Netherlands went into a lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020. Politicians called for solidarity and to help each other to get through the lockdown. Yet, COVID policy restrictions discouraged social interactions, which are necessary for helping. Hence, despite calls for solidarity, informal volunteering, or helping outside of organizations, likely declined during the first lockdown. This paper provides more insight into the change in informal volunteering during the first lockdown and the extent to which this change depended on resources, motivation and opportunities for volunteering. To do so, this paper answers the following research questions: to what extent did informal volunteering decline during the first lockdown in the Netherlands? To what extent did this decline depend on changes in individuals’ resources, motivation and opportunities for volunteering? We derive hypotheses from a general theoretical framework that distinguishes between resources, motivations and opportunities (or human, cultural and social capital). We expect that if a person’s resources, motivations or opportunities decreased (increased) informal volunteering decreased more (less) strongly. We use panel data from SOCON, collected in February 2019 or February 2020 (wave 1) and July 2020 (wave 2), allowing for a natural experimental design. Measuring informal volunteering, respondents were asked how often they had helped relatives, friends, and neighbors with practical things, such as doing chores or grocery shopping, in the last year (wave 1) or during the lockdown (wave 2) (1=never, 7=every day). We used individual-level data from SOCON as predictors of resources, opportunities and motivations. We performed regression analyses with informal volunteering in wave 2 as the dependent variable, controlling for informal volunteering in wave 1. These analyses show that informal volunteering declined during the lockdown. This decline is smaller among those who increased social contact, were concerned for relatives, became unemployed or felt solidarity with other people. The decline was larger among those who had poor health, were concerned about their well-being or decreased social contact. Age, having young children and working from home did not affect the decline in informal volunteering.

to what extent did informal helping decline during the first lockdown in the Netherlands? To what extent does this decline depend on individuals’ resources, motivation and opportunities for helping?

• Collected during project
• Data collected added to existing collection

• Questionaire

Yes

Only the data from individuals who participated in the July 2020 data collection round have been included. Data from other respondents was excluded

• SPSS file

• Structured

15/03/2020

01/06/2020

the Netherlands

01/01/2019

31/08/2020