Volunteer participation in community care

Volunteer inputs to community care (health and social services) are important in the developing mixed economy of welfare. And community care is a common locus for volunteering activity in the UK. But who are these volunteers? And what factors<p><p>motivate and constrain volunteering. Using data from a UK household survey, the patterns of community care volunteering are examined using multivariate statistical methods. Many individual, household and other characteristics influence volunteering, with quite marked differences in the patterns for distinct types of community care activities: health and social welfare organisations generally, supporting elderly people, visiting sick or elderly people, and transporting or escorting. Methodologically, the results point to failures of previous studies and lower income groups. These and other findings have implications for community care policy and practice.