First, though, why are psychologists interested in voluntary work?  There are several reasons.  From the point of view of society, the "volunteer sector” is increasingly important in supplying all kinds of services to the economy - from residential care to tourist guides.  From the point of view of psychological theory, voluntary work provides an important control on all sorts of questions that we ask about the motivation of people in employment - because volunteers do some of the same sorts of things, but don't get paid.

The specific questions we were looking at had to do with the satisfaction people get out of their voluntary work.  "Job satisfaction" is one of the most important things psychologists measure when looking at employment.  But most of the ways of measuring it are tied up with issues to do with pay.  So the first thing we wanted to find out was whether we could measure job satisfaction in a useful way among a group of people who aren't getting paid for our work.   Secondly, if we could measure job satisfaction, we wanted to look at some of the factors that affect it among volunteers, because it's obviously in everyone's interest for volunteers to feel satisfied by what they are doing.  Specifically, we were interested in whether younger and older volunteers get their satisfaction for different reasons.

So in the questionnaire we included questions from several of the standard tests used to assess job satisfaction among employees, suitably modified to make sense for a voluntary work context.  We also included some sets of questions that Exeter researchers have used before, to measure volunteer workers' motivation.  Then there were some questions to find out what sort of voluntary work people did and how long they had been doing it.  Finally we had some questions about age, employment history and so on, so we could break the results down by those factors.

We got 180 usable questionnaires back, which was a good number, and enough to allow us to do most of the statistical tests that are needed when you are trying to develop a psychological test.  Almost equal numbers came from Exeter and Plymouth.  69% of those who replied were women, 14% were under 26, 33% were over 65, 21% work full or part time, 6% were housewives, 4% students, 20% unemployed, and 44% were retired.  41% left school at 16 or younger, while 33% went to university or something similar.  These figures look nothing like the proportions for the UK population as a whole - but they are quite similar to the figures for UK volunteers as a whole, so we felt we had quite a satisfactory sample to work with.

People were doing a great variety of voluntary work, from directing charities to digging ditches.  The largest number, though, were engaged in various kinds of advice, counselling, befriending, and giving information.   Nearly half had been doing voluntary work for 5 years or more, and only 12% had been involved for less than 6 months.  Over half were doing 4 hours or more per week, and less that 10% were doing under 2 hours.  About a third were recruited through the volunteer bureau, and almost all the others had got involved because they knew someone who was either already volunteering, or had been helped by the organisation.  This again is a fairly typical picture.

Most of our modified job satisfaction questions worked very well.  The questionnaire began with 25 questions about different aspects of satisfaction with your voluntary work.  We found that from the answers that there were five different aspects of job satisfaction that were to some extent independent.  They were satisfaction with:

• The people you work with
• The amount of independence you have
• The way doing voluntary work makes you feel
• The quality of the organisation you work in
• The amount of variety in your work

It needs to be stressed that all these effects are only trends.  Furthermore, the average effects are quite small, individual data is quite variable, and there are many exceptions.  Still, it is important to try to understand why we get these particular trends.

We think we can make some quite good guesses.  In the lifetime of the older volunteers, the education system has changed out of all recognition.  Fifty years ago, many people who left school at 16 did so reluctantly.  They would have been perfectly capable of going on to more education and responsible jobs.  Volunteering, later in life, may even give them a chance to use abilities they never got a chance to use in employment.  For these people, when they left school is more a marker of their family's social class than of their own academic ability.  Nowadays, those who leave school at 16 are much more likely to be those who didn't get on with the education system: there is a good chance they are feeling rejected and disaffected.  It will be harder for them to find satisfaction in volunteering.

As regards motivation, young people have a wider range of reasons for going into voluntary work than older people.  They are often looking for experience relevant to a possible future job; they may even have been "encouraged" to volunteer by family or careers counsellors.  If these reasons for volunteering are strong, they are less likely to find satisfaction.

This is only a summary of the main results of the study, and of course it leaves out all the statistical detail.  We will now be going on to write a fuller academic paper about it: if anyone is interested in that, we will be happy to send a copy when it is ready.