Types of Social Being: an investigation in the United Kingdom of time allocation to social activities by gender, education and social class

Abstract

Recent interest in the sources of social cohesion has produced research on organisational membership and voluntary activity. However, the quality of social life also depends on informal helping, an activity which is not measured in most social surveys but is available from the HETUS time use surveys. Previous research shows that the highly educated spend more time on formally organised voluntary work. However, the less educated, particularly women, spend more time on informal helping activities. Models of time allocation to formal and informal voluntary activity will be presented. The models will investigate the proportion of consumption time allocated to formal and informal voluntary work by gender, age, education, fertility status and occupation.