Hop in and Drop Out: How are Changes in the Life Course Related to Changes in Volunteering for Humanitarian Organizations?

This article examines to what extent life course changes are associated with the likelihood to start humanitarian volunteering, and how many people start, quit or continue humanitarian volunteering over a longer time period, in the Netherlands. Using rich panel data from 2008 to 2022, we test hypotheses derived from influential theories on resources and role substitution. We find that the volunteer pool of humanitarian organizations is volatile, indicating that the solid core of stayers is small. Most life course changes in people’s lives do not (directly) relate to individuals’ voluntary behavior regarding starting humanitarian volunteering. In contrast, comparisons between respondents are more in line with the literature. We recommend to extend this study to all forms of volunteering to further assess the applicability of static theories when transposed to dynamic within-person transitions.