Session

Management, Business and Economics

Description

The circumstances of voluntary engagement have largely remained unexamined due to the vague and challenging description of their content. Voluntary engagement tends to increase in European nations characterized by civil societies with material prosperity and high life satisfaction such as in Norway, Sweden and in Austria. This paper studies voluntary contributions in Lower Austria by tracking a cumulative data file from STATISTICS AUSTRIA in terms which purpose is twofold: first, in order to estimate the quantitative dimension of voluntary contributions, data from an additional section of the Austrian Micro Census is considered, and second employment and unemployment data from the section of the Austrian Micro Census that covers the European Labor Force Survey, to provide monetary valuation of voluntary contributions. Complementary insights into voluntary engagement in Lower Austria are delivered by expert interviews. Our results provide evidence of the extensive personal satisfactory importance of voluntary contributions and show disapproval towards monetary compensation of volunteering efforts. Our identifying assumption is that 43.8% of all Austrians above 15 years of age are contributing voluntarily, which allows us to control for corresponding values for Lower Austria. We find that 617,804 persons in Lower Austria – which amounts to 46.8% of the population – are voluntarily engaged in ten areas which are segmented into formal and into informal fields of voluntary involvement with neighborhood support taking top-tier with 28.6% of all fields, where primarily females are present. Our analysis suggests that the monetary value of voluntary contributions in Lower Austria can be determined with € 3.3 bn.

Keywords:

public economics, labor and demographic economics, labor force composition, wage level and structure, regional data

Proceedings Editor

Edmond Hajrizi & Mo Vaziri

First Page

266

Last Page

271

Location

Prishtina, Kosovo

Start Date

2-11-2012 9:00 AM

End Date

3-11-2012 5:00 PM

DOI

10.33107/ubt-ic.2012.35

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Nov 2nd, 9:00 AM Nov 3rd, 5:00 PM

Monetary Valuation of Voluntary Contributions: the Case of Lower Austria

Prishtina, Kosovo

The circumstances of voluntary engagement have largely remained unexamined due to the vague and challenging description of their content. Voluntary engagement tends to increase in European nations characterized by civil societies with material prosperity and high life satisfaction such as in Norway, Sweden and in Austria. This paper studies voluntary contributions in Lower Austria by tracking a cumulative data file from STATISTICS AUSTRIA in terms which purpose is twofold: first, in order to estimate the quantitative dimension of voluntary contributions, data from an additional section of the Austrian Micro Census is considered, and second employment and unemployment data from the section of the Austrian Micro Census that covers the European Labor Force Survey, to provide monetary valuation of voluntary contributions. Complementary insights into voluntary engagement in Lower Austria are delivered by expert interviews. Our results provide evidence of the extensive personal satisfactory importance of voluntary contributions and show disapproval towards monetary compensation of volunteering efforts. Our identifying assumption is that 43.8% of all Austrians above 15 years of age are contributing voluntarily, which allows us to control for corresponding values for Lower Austria. We find that 617,804 persons in Lower Austria – which amounts to 46.8% of the population – are voluntarily engaged in ten areas which are segmented into formal and into informal fields of voluntary involvement with neighborhood support taking top-tier with 28.6% of all fields, where primarily females are present. Our analysis suggests that the monetary value of voluntary contributions in Lower Austria can be determined with € 3.3 bn.