OVERVIEW OF THE VOLUNTEERING DEVELOPMENT DYNAMICS IN RUSSIA

ABSTRACT

This article provides a brief overview of the state of the volunteer movement in Russia, which is based on the statistical results shown in "Development of the volunteer movement in Russia: statistical analysis" from the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation and the DOBRO.RU portal.

Keywords: volunteering, dynamics, Russia, overview.

Volunteering becomes of particular importance for research in the context of large-scale social problems that government institutions cannot solve on their own.

The dynamics of the volunteering development in the Russian Federation can be traced by the information and analytical materials in "Development of the volunteer movement in Russia: statistical analysis" from the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation (data from 2016 to 2019) [1] and statistics from the DOBRO.RU portal (data for 2021 year) [2].

Most of the volunteer projects are related to the position “Children and Youth” - 14649, the second place is “Veterans and Historical Memory” - 7871, at the third position is “Culture and Art” - 7502. The least of all projects are related to the positions “Human Rights” - 1034 and "Search for the missing" - 667.

The portal determines the average age of a volunteer as 25 years. Women make up 75% of volunteers, while men 25%.

The portal notes that open data is used on the development of the volunteer movement in the country, but the principle and scheme of data collection is not provided. Identification of volunteers based on the principles of one-time participation, constant activity, etc. is difficult.

Secondly, we will consider the informational and analytical material "Development of the volunteer movement in Russia: statistical analysis" from the autonomous non-profit organization "Analytical Center for the Government of the Russian Federation". This organization is a non-profit organization that provides information, analytical and expert support for the priority areas of socio-economic, scientific and technical development of the Russian Federation. The founder of the Analytical Center is the Russian Federation.

This information and analytical material contains an analysis of the volunteer movement in the Russian Federation in 2016-2019 using a statistical method based on data from a sample labor force survey conducted by Rosstat in 2016-2019.

Until 2016, volunteering was not given enough attention, and the research used the results of selective sociological research, the results of the analysis of regulatory data, content analysis of data from the media.

We assume that the situation with COVID-19 and the active work of volunteers regarding it, could cause increased attention to volunteers, which led to additional research on the volunteer movement.

The dynamics of the structure of the types of work performed by participants in the volunteer movement draws special attention (Table 1). For most positions, there is a significant increase, but in a number of important types of work we see a decline: social work, fundraising for charity or another social project.

Table 1.

Dynamics of population aged 15 and over, working as volunteers, categorized by type of work performed

The Analytical Center notes that, in general, the hierarchy of types of employment has remained practically unchanged: more than half of all volunteers participated in social work, landscaping and cleaning of the territory of the settlement, and the differentiation of the employment of volunteers can be formed under the influence of a number of factors, such as: the objective needs of the regions associated with solving specific problems - humanitarian, economic, social, environmental and others; levels of organization and profiling (industry, professional) of the volunteer movement; public perception of the activities carried out by volunteers.

The Analytical Center informs that the analysis of statistical data on the dynamics of the volunteer movement can also indirectly characterize the effectiveness of the implementation of measures to support volunteering, implemented in the Russian Federation.

The results of the analysis are formulated by the Analytical Center as follows:

1. Strengthening the gender balance of activities for the development of the volunteer movement (informational, educational, organizational, etc.).
2. Improvement of measures to support "senior volunteering", including among people of retirement age.
3. Enhancing the participation of volunteers in a number of socially important types of work

References:

1. Development of the volunteer movement in Russia: statistical analysis [Electronic resource] // Analytical Center for the Government of the Russian Federation. — URL: https://ac.gov.ru/uploads/2-Publications/analitika/volunteers.pdf (date of visit: 27.05.2021).
2. Analytics of volunteering in Russia // DOBRO.RU. М. — URL: https://dobro.ru/analytics (date of visit: 27.05.2021)