A trend away from collective to individual social activity

One explanation is a shift from collective to individual actions in a post-modernist society. Putnam (2000) identified this trend in the US; illustrated by the sport of bowling being conducted more ‘alone’ than in formal bowling structures (that is, clubs and leagues). A similar trend away from collective sports participation has been observed in England (Harris et al, 2017). Sociologists explain the shift from collective to individual behaviour as from a modernist to a post-modernist society, in which an individual’s sense of identity is less connected to society’s structural divisions of class, race, gender and so on, and more to fluid individual differences between people (Elias, 2001). The balance of self-identity has changed from identification with a collective group to identity of the individual person. Putnam (2000) estimated that in the US about 50% of the trend from collective to individual activity between 1972 and 1998 was accounted for by differences between generations, as the younger generation were more disengaged from collective activity. In contrast, the older generation’s experience of the Great Depression and the Second World War engendered values that encouraged civic engagement. Research suggests a similar shift in values in England whereby ‘millennials’ (those born in 1990 and after) place greater importance on independence, autonomy, hedonism and self-expression, and less importance on conformity, tradition and maintaining the safety and stability of society (Her Majesty’s Government, 2014). These changes in values promote a general indifference toward traditional community structures or forms of engagement, such as volunteering.

Putnam used concepts of ‘bonding social capital’: the expression of homophilic ties between individuals who are similar; and ‘bridging social capital’: the expression of heterophilic ties between people who are different. To understand volunteering it is useful to add ‘linking social capital’ as a special case of bridging. This describes relationships between agents who have unequal power but act together to achieve mutually agreed goals. To do this they need to share respect and trust. These three types of social capital are important for volunteering, but linking social capital is especially relevant because it is an expression of altruism on the part of the more powerful partner. A critique of Putnam’s analysis is that it does not consider the role of the state in promoting mutual respect and redressing imbalances of power; thus setting a climate promoting linking social capital. Through an analysis of changing social capital in the US, Szreter (2002) contends that in a liberal democratic society the promotion of linking social capital requires individuals to ‘embrace values of egalitarianism… rather than privileging competitive idealism and autonomy’ (Szreter, 2002: 595), and to endorse state policies which reflect these values. Thus, the generational change in attitudes identified by Putnam can be explained by changes in the dominant moral and political ideology directing state policy. Of course, the relation between the values of individuals and those reflected in state policy is debatable: individuals vote for parties which reflect their values while state policies influence values.

An increase in inequality

Economically-developed countries with more unequal income distributions perform worse on a set of measures of well-being, including generalised trust (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). Across the 27 EU member states, greater inequality is also associated with lower levels of volunteering (Veal and Nichols, 2017) and leisure time. Wilkinson and Picketts’ explanation for these relationships was that inequality reflects a competitive culture which results in status anxiety, lack of social and institutional trust, and stress (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). This produces negative social and health outcomes. This relates to the discussion above in that lower levels of trust between different income groups would reduce linking social capital. An implication is that if societies become more unequal, volunteering is likely to decrease, although this has not been tested.

If increasing inequality is associated with a fall in volunteering one would expect this to be seen in the UK. The Equality Trust reports that: ‘The UK became a much more equal nation during the post-war years; the 40 years to 1979. There has been a considerable increase in income inequality since 1979’ (Equality Trust, 2023). This might have impacted on the willingness/ability to volunteer.

A reduction in available time

Households and individuals may have or perceive that they have less available time to volunteer. Lack of time is a commonly-cited barrier to volunteering in surveys, for example, in sport volunteering (Nichols et al, 2019). It is debatable if this represents: more time spent at paid work and with family obligations; more opportunities of things to do in this time; a more voracious competition for time; or a socially acceptable response to surveys for not doing something which is generally thought to be ‘good’. The most accurate information we have on time use in the UK is provided by time-use diaries (Gershuny and Sullivan, 2019). Time not spent in unpaid work, paid work, and sleep/ personal care, and thus available for volunteering, has changed little between 1961 and 2015, but this hides considerable differences between groups. Substantial increases in overall workloads over the last 50 years have affected especially dual-income households with children. However, it is possible that a perceived lack of time matters more than the actual time available: an increase in opportunities to use time has led to stress as individuals are forced to spend time choosing between them (Robinson and Godbey, 1997). A significant and growing use of time is social media, which has successfully competed for time as its business model is to capture as much of the user’s attention as possible, thus maximising advertising revenue and building up a marketing profile of the user (Zuboff, 2019). This will add to a sense of being time-poor and erode the willingness to volunteer.

A crowding out of social values by market values

A promotion of individualism above collective compassion might account for a decline in volunteering. One of the four characteristics in the classic definition of volunteering (Cnaan et al, 1996) is that the intended beneficiary is someone else; net cost to the volunteer being confirmed as the most important defining characteristic by further research (Meijs et al, 2003). A life-course approach to understanding volunteering (Brodie et al, 2011) concluded that although individuals’ circumstances and opportunities change, values remain fairly constant. This relates to Szreter (2002)’s critique of Putnam. While Putnam attributed a decline in social capital partly to a generational change in values, Szreter (2002) attributed the change in dominant values to a change in the moral climate set by state policy. His analysis contrasted the periods of free market dominance in the US: 1865–1900, 1920s, and 1975 to the present (Szreter, 2002), with the periods of much more significant state intervention. From 1975 US state policy was encapsulated in President Reagan’s quote in 1986, ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help’ (Reagan, 1986).

A similar contrast applies to the UK where a change in the view of the role of the state and its policies may have contributed to a decline in volunteering. In 1945 the post-war Labour government based policy on the values embodied in the Beveridge (1942) report, which informed the development of the welfare state and underpinned the vision of a better society after World War Two. The Beveridge report was an expression of solidarity because its benefits were universal. ‘Rather than providing support only to the destitute or the poor, everyone would receive benefits and everyone would pay. This state was not a charity, it was solidarity’ (Ansell, 2023: 5). The welfare state was an expression of collective compassion: ‘we are all in it together’. Following Szreter’s (2002) analysis this would promote linking social capital between groups with unequal resources. In contrast, the 1979 Conservative Government based economic and social policy on the assumption that self-interest expressed in the ‘free market’ would achieve the optimum result for everybody, and the role of the state should be minimalist. Solidarity was undermined by a belief in a meritocracy where merit is associated with wealth. Those who are most wealthy attribute their position to their own efforts and talents (Sandel, 2021). This automatically denigrates the personal attributes of the least wealthy and divides society into ‘them’ and ‘us’, thus undermining linking social capital.

The contrasting state policies reflected different views on human nature. Allowing the primacy of the ‘free’ market assumes that competitive self-interest is people’s natural state, and allowing its free expression is society’s optimal strategy for economic success (Raworth, 2017). More interventionist state policies, such as the welfare state, assumed human nature was compassionate. The assumptions built into economic and political policies will influence the values of individuals. For example, an emphasis on monetary values can displace moral values (Frey and Osterloh, 2002); moral obligations are replaced by commercial transactions (Sandel, 2012).

How could this decline in volunteering be reversed?

Based on the four factors discussed above, to reverse the decline political leadership needs to promote a vision of a ‘better’ society in which mutual trust and respect are fostered. Greater equality would engender trust between groups. Merit needs to be disassociated from wealth. The market economy needs to be harnessed to achieve a society based on social values, rather than letting the market commodify them into exchange values. Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England (Carney, 2021) advocates ‘inclusive capitalism’ which requires scope for dynamism, sustainability across generations, market outcomes to be seen to be fair, individuals to feel responsible and accountable for their actions, and social solidarity – in which citizens recognise obligations to each other. These values need to be built into the regulation of capitalism. A sense of fairness and social solidarity would nurture linking social capital in which agents who have unequal power share respect and trust. Time pressures could be reduced by regulation of working hours, increased wage levels, and reductions in housing costs, which allowed families to achieve an acceptable standard of living on one wage or a reduced joint income, and removing the penalty women take to their career as a consequence of parenthood (Bregman, 2017). These changes would be within a more equal society, which would reduce the need to compete for market position and status. Regulating social media so that it served societies’ needs better, rather than voraciously sucking up time (Hari, 2022), would be part of a much broader programme to harness artificial intelligence for the benefit of society. A vision of a better society needs to be led by values, not by increasing gross domestic product (GDP) for its own sake, which has been smuggled in as an overarching political objective from the 1950s, without considering what this growth achieves (Raworth, 2017). However, we can’t rely on the lead in changing society coming from politicians. In the words of Gunter Grass, ‘I think the Weimar Republic and the Nazis took over in 1933 because there were not enough citizens…. Citizens cannot leave politics just to politicians’ (Szreter, 2002: 573).

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.