Volunteering used to be a mainstay of U.S. culture. But in recent years, there has been a decline in volunteering. Giving back to their community hasn’t played as big a role in many Americans’ lives.

The researchers found that people living in disadvantaged communities or areas that have high levels of economic inequality were less likely to volunteer, contributing to the decline in volunteering.

“Historically, rural areas have had higher volunteering rates than urban ones,” says Rebecca Nesbit, lead author of the study and a professor in the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.

“These communities often have closer ties and more social interaction with each other, and those close ties may make them more likely to volunteer. Because when you’re volunteering for the local food bank in these communities, you’re helping people that you have a personal connection to.”

The recession of 2008 didn’t help matters. And more than a decade and a half later, the decline in volunteering is still evident. Volunteering rates have yet to recover.

“Any advantage to volunteering afforded by good economic growth before the recession was wiped out after the recession, and that can lead people to change their behavior,” Nesbit says.

“In poor economic conditions, people might take energy away from their voluntary activities to put it into more income-producing activities that create a greater sense of personal stability.”

The study is the first analysis of confidential level volunteering data in a secure U.S. Census Bureau Research Data Center, which is a nationally representative sample of 56,000 households interviewed each month. This data is considered the premiere source of information on national and state volunteering statistics.

The researchers relied on a dataset of about 90,000 individuals for each year of the survey.

The study examined effects of economic disadvantage and inequality, and how the Great Recession exacerbated existing differences in volunteering rates between rural and urban communities.

The researchers found that the recession had the biggest dampening effect on volunteering in areas with the most economic growth and above average income equality.

Read the full article about the decline in volunteering by Leigh Hataway at Futurity.