Who Volunteers in Japan and How? - Basic Findings from Micro Data

Previous studies (especially in Japan) of volunteer labor supply have the following three weaknesses. (1) Most rely on extemporary questionnaire surveys of hundreds or thousands of individuals about volunteer activities. This approach induces sample-selection bias to the extent that respondents are those who are most interested in those activities. (2) They neglect qualitative aspects of volunteer activities, which make it difficult to explain how free-rider problems occur and how they might be solved. (3) In married couples, husbands' activities are influenced by wives' activities and vice versa, but previous studies have not examined these mutual relationships. We focus on these three issues by utilizing micro data from the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities, which is a general survey of approximately 200,000 household members about the allocation of time to various kinds of activities, including volunteering. We find the following. (1) Most previous studies have overestimated individual participation rates in volunteer activities. (2) Married couples tend to participate jointly in volunteer activities. (3) Free-rider problems are more serious in urban areas than in rural areas, especially in activities related to social services. These results suggest that a policy framework for promoting volunteering should be flexibly designed by carefully considering location, the attributes of households and individuals, and the qualitative aspects of activities