Publication type
Conference Paper
Series
BHPS-2007 Conference: the 2007 British Household Panel Survey Research Conference, 5 July -7 July 2007, Colchester, UK
Author
Publication date
June 1, 2007
Abstract:
This paper presents the preliminary findings from a study that demonstrates that work at home is beneficial for women’s involvement in voluntary groups but not for men. Voluntary groups have long been important in supplying social goods and services and producing beneficial effects for individuals. Although information about participation in voluntary groups has accumulated, however, surprisingly little attention has been paid to potential relationships between individuals’ employment conditions and their involvement in voluntary groups. This paper focuses on working at home compared to working at employers’ premises as a potential factor related to changes in employees’ membership/activity in voluntary groups. This study employs secondary data analysis of the British Household Panel Study. It involves a sample of 24359 person-wave observations pooled from six waves in every second year from 1993 to 2003. The results of this longitudinal data analysis reveal that although changes in location of work are very unlikely to encourage more employees to join voluntary groups, nevertheless, such changes are an important factor that might affect whether an individual decides to continue voluntary participation. Compared to traditional continuous work at employers’ premises, continuous work at home from year to year has a negative effect on men’s membership of voluntary groups, but a positive effect on women’s activity in voluntary groups. Compared to those who work at employers’ premises, men who work at home are more likely to leave voluntary groups, but women who work at home are less likely to stop their activity and more likely to join activity, if they have moved from work at their employers’ premises to work at home.
Subject
Link
- http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps/2007/programme/data/papers/Kamerade.pdf
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