Giving Compass' Take:

• Do Good Institute breaks down how shifting life milestones including education, employment, marriage, having children can impact volunteering and donations from young people. 

• How have milestones in your life affected your giving, if at all? How can philanthropists encourage peer giving with this shift in mind? 

• Read more about barriers to donating. 

The United States has experienced declines in adults’ rates of volunteering with organizations and charitable giving over the last two decades. Because these behaviors generate wide-ranging benefits for communities as well as the volunteers themselves, it is essential to figure out how to turn around these downward trends. First we need to better understand the societal factors driving these declines.

Research on volunteering with organizations has frequently focused on the health benefits that older volunteers enjoy, and the positive effects of volunteering for children and adolescents. These studies fit into a larger literature on the benefits of prosocial behavior, which can include giving to charity and informal civic activities in addition to volunteering with an organization. However, with only a few recent exceptions, there are few empirical studies that address the question of why volunteering and giving rates have risen and fallen in recent years.

This brief focuses on how the volunteering and giving rates of young adults (ages 22 through 35) are related to their life choices. Our study focuses on five milestones that have historically been associated with the transition to adulthood: completing formal higher education, getting a job, marrying, becoming a parent, and living independently. To address this question, we combine data featured in recent U.S. Census Bureau research, which found that Americans are reconceiving the idea of what it means to reach adulthood, with data collected from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Supplement on Volunteering (Volunteer Supplement). Every September between 2002 and 2015, the CPS Volunteer Supplement collected national statistics on volunteering through or for an organization. Starting in 2008, the Supplement also began collecting data on giving to charity.

  • Young adult volunteering (age 22 to 35) hit a high of 25.6 percent (2003) after the terrorist attacks on September 11 before displaying a substantial and long decline to a rate of 21.6 percent in 2015. If the volunteer rate had stayed at its 2003 levels, an additional 2.42 million young adults would have volunteered in 2015.
  • Over the years, young adult charitable giving has remained more stable than volunteering. After the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, the giving rate increased for a few years, but then declined to a rate of 41.0 percent (2015), which is roughly the same giving rate as the end of the Great Recession (2009) – a period when the amount given to charity from all sources declined significantly
  • Fewer of today’s young adults (ages 22 to 35) are seeking or reaching milestones traditionally associated with the transition to adulthood – for example being employed full-time, living independently, owning a home, getting married, and having children – that are positively associated with volunteering and giving. This could help explain the declines in charitable behaviors.
  • Even today’s young adults who are obtaining or choosing traditional adulthood milestones – such as graduating from college, finding a full- time job, getting married, and having children – are often volunteering and giving less than in previous generations.