Stratification in Formal Volunteering: Occupational Spill-Over Effects on the Hierarchical Positions of Volunteers in Voluntary Organizations

Abstract

This research note examines vertical stratification in formal volunteering. More specifically, it focuses on occupational spillover from positions in the paid labor market to volunteer positions based on the new global ILO standard for the measurement of volunteer work. This methodology is innovative in its similar coding of paid and volunteer work according to a standardized international occupational classification. This study uses data from the 2014 Belgian Labor Force Survey (N = 795), to which the ILO module was added. Based on results of multivariate logistic regression on a three-tier volunteer occupational structure, we reject the existence of an overall spillover effect. We nevertheless find evidence of a “constrained occupational spillover” for the highest occupational category, which experiences “downward mobility” toward intermediate volunteer positions, due to the structural constraints of the volunteer occupational system. The results further identify educational attainment and gender as key determinants of the volunteer occupational hierarchy.