The Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management of Baruch College recently published a new working paper on the influence of life cycle and major life events on volunteering.

Research shows that people’s volunteering behaviors change over the life cycle. Young people might volunteer as means of improving their CV.  Newly married couples decrease their volunteering in the face of the adjustment to married life.  As couples begin to have children and invest in family life, their involvement shifts to be more involved in schools, youth organisations and religious communities.  In their more mature years, people might increase their volunteering hours as they retire from their jobs. But as old age and declining health interfere, volunteering tapers off. In addition to the effect of the life cycle on volunteering, the paper looks at how certain life events can also influence volunteering, including the birth of a child, getting divorced or being widowed.

The full paper can be found here.