Causal Connections: Secondary Data Analyses of the Links Between Volunteering and Social Cohesion in the UK

This report, conducted with Belong for the UK DCMS (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) presents findings from analyses of three large-scale surveys assessing the relationship between social cohesion and volunteering, and the factors that may encourage or hinder them. The three surveys cover a combined total of approximately 77,000 respondents and cover time periods from 2014-2021. Using multilevel and other analyses we find that horizontal cohesion (cohesion within society) has a bidirectional relationship with volunteering. Volunteering is associated with subsequently greater feelings of cohesion and greater cohesion is associated with a subsequently higher likelihood of volunteering. Vertical cohesion (cohesion with the state) has a unidirectional relationship with volunteering. Volunteering is associated with subsequent feelings of cohesion, but initial feelings of vertical cohesion do not anticipate higher volunteering. The cohesion-volunteering relationship was stronger for formal than for informal volunteering, and there was more variability in the relationship at more granular levels of locality than larger (e.g. regional) levels. The relationship did not vary consistently by demographic categories (gender, age, faith, ethnicity, disability). Time constraints and the COVID pandemic inhibited volunteering as well as social contact. Volunteering to support others was associated with perceptions of higher social cohesion, volunteering to prevent harm was associated with perceptions of lower social cohesion.