Volunteering at the modern stage if its development in Russia: Dynamics and resources of social capital
Автор: Agafonova D.Yu., Romashkina G.F.
Журнал: Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast @volnc-esc-en
Рубрика: Social and economic development
Статья в выпуске: 3 т.18, 2025 года.
Бесплатный доступ
The paper analyzes the dynamics and resources of volunteering in Russia for 2016–2024. The relevance of the study is due to the growing interest in volunteering, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as active government support, including the federal project “Social Activity”. The main aim of the work is to study the involvement of citizens in volunteering and identify key resources for its development, taking into account demographic and social changes. Scientific novelty of the research lies in a comprehensive analysis of volunteering through the prism of a resource-based approach, including social capital. The transformation of forms of volunteering from traditional to digital and occasional is shown, which distinguishes the work from previous studies. Special attention is paid to gender and territorial imbalances. The methodology includes an analysis of the results of a Rosstat labor force survey (2016–2024) and a sociological study in the Tyumen Region (N=1,430). The methods of structural and dynamic analysis, clustering, as well as statistical criteria (χ2, Student's t-test) are applied. The number of volunteers in Russia has tripled, despite its population decline. Such activities as fundraising, social assistance and animal welfare prevail, but their coverage does not exceed 3% of the population. A gender bias has been identified: women make up 72% of volunteers and spend more time volunteering. Engaging in volunteering depends to a great extent on social capital (trust, membership in organizations). The limitations of the study are related to incomplete representativeness of the data and predominance of government sources. Prospects for further research include studying the motivation of men, the effectiveness of digital volunteering formats, and development of programs for young people and retirees
Volunteering, social capital, dynamics, resources, gender imbalance
Короткий адрес: https://sciup.org/147251538
IDR: 147251538 | DOI: 10.15838/esc.2025.3.99.13
Текст научной статьи Volunteering at the modern stage if its development in Russia: Dynamics and resources of social capital
Numerous observations and statistics from recent decades demonstrate a steady increase in interest in volunteering in Russia, which is usually associated with the intensification of volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of digital platforms to engage in this activity. Government initiatives, such as declaring 2018 the Year of Volunteers1, and the implementation of the Federal Project “Community-Minded Activity”2 in 2019–2024, have helped to increase public awareness of volunteering. According to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, 320 new volunteer centers were organized in 2020 alone, 2.5 million people took part in the WeAreTogether3 project. According to the same sources, by 2025, more than 7.4 million people use the information system for the development of volunteering and generally 13% of Russian citizens were engaged in volunteering through volunteer support centers (communities, associations). It is also noted that among companies with state participation, the growth of volunteerism has exceeded 40% per year4. Large companies try to highlight their attention to volunteer activities, but such publications provide information which is more like an advertisement rather than objective statistics. These data come into some conflict with the results of mass labor force surveys conducted by Rosstat annually since 2006, and the findings of Russian scholars. However, the scientists themselves have not reached a consensus on identifying the volume of volunteer activity in Russia. This contradiction determined the problem and scientific objectives of our research.
In general, the vast majority of Russian citizens approve of volunteer activities. However, the answer to the question about their involvement in volunteering practices is not so positive. An extensive database of Rosstat labor force surveys is publicly available, as well as the results of sociological studies in which questions were asked about the involvement of respondents in volunteering. It is important to analyze data on the resources of Russian citizens’ participation in volunteering, as this allows us to assess the potential for social mobilization of the population.
Research objectives: 1) to assess the level of Russians’ involvement in volunteering and its trend in 2016–2024, taking into account socio-demographic characteristics; 2) to determine significant resources for the development of volunteering in the context of a changing demographic structure.
