The Reverse Gender Gap in Volunteer Activities: Does Culture Matter?

Abstract

Women take on 57% (men: 43%) of all volunteering globally (UN 2018). In this paper, we follow an epidemiological approach to explore the possible role of culture in determining this reverse gender gap in the time devoted to volunteer activities. To that end, we merge data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2006–2019 and the Gender Gap Index (GGI) of the World Economic Forum 2021. We use a sample of early-arrival first- and second-generation immigrants who live in the United States. Our empirical approach rests on the fact that all these individuals have grown up under the same host country’s labor market, regulations, laws, and institutions but differ in their cultural heritage. Thus, in this setting, gender discrepancies in the time devoted to volunteer activities can be interpreted as the effect of culture. We find that more gender-equal norms in the country of origin are associated with women devoting less time to volunteer activities relative to men. We further analyze the channels shaping the culture from the country of ancestry and the existence of horizontal (within-communities) transmission of culture. Our results are robust to the use of different subsamples and to the inclusion of demographic and socio-economic controls.