ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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Toward a new work society? Predicting opinions about flexible combinations of paid and unpaid work among Flemish Red Cross volunteers
by
Lesley Hustinx
Catholic University of Leuven, Department of Sociology, Belgium
Coauthors: Lammertyn, Frans

In this paper, we will focus on the blurring boundaries between the realms of work and volunteering. According to some authors, the extensive professionalization of volunteer activity is indicative for the existence of a late modern society in which the meaning of work is extending beyond the contours of paid labor (e.g. Kühnlein and Mutz, 1999). Structural developments on the labor market lead away from the traditional lifelong and full employment ideal. Under the increasingly flexible and precarious labor market conditions the centrality of paid work is reduced. This does not imply a devaluation of work but a weakening of the previously strict separation between work and life (Mutz et al., 2000: 5). In this context, volunteering acquires a new role and potential. It is seen as a replacement for a lost embeddedness in traditional labor market institutions (Erlinghaven, 2000), or as an adequate answer to conditions and risks resulting from a discontinuous occupational biography with intermittent periods of (un)employment (Kühlein and Mutz, 1999: 300-301).

We will empirically explore these basic ideas on the rise of a 'new work society', or the (changing) relationship between paid and unpaid work on the basis of a representative survey of 652 Flemish Red Cross volunteers conducted in the year 2000. By means of a reliable Likert scale, we will gauge the opinions of the volunteers about more flexible combinations of paid and unpaid work. We will construct an explanatory model for predicting whether a person is a 'pioneer of flexibility' (Mutz et al., 2000) on the basis of economic and social background indicators (e.g., employment conditions, social class, family situation, (un)conventional forms of participation), as well as on the basis of an empirical and multidimensional assessment of the Red Cross volunteers' style of volunteering (Hustinx, 2003; Hustinx and Lammertyn, 2003). References: Kühnlein, I. and Mutz, G. (1999). Individualisierung und bürgerschaftliches Engagement in der Tätigkeitsgesellschaft. In: Kistler, E., Noll, H-H. and Priller, E. (Eds.). Perspektiven gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts. Empirische Befunde, Praxiserfahrungen, Messkonzepte. Berlin: Sigma, p.291-306.

Mutz, G., Kühnlein, I., Klement, C. and Janowicz, C. (2000). On the way to a new work society? Paid work, citizen activities and Eigenarbeit. Unpublished manuscript, Munich Institute for Social Sciences Erlinghagen, M. (2000). Arbeitslosigkeit und Ehrenamtliche Tätigkeit im Zeitverlauf. Eine Längsschnittanalyse der westdeutschen Stichprobe des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) für die Jahre 1992 und 1996. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 52(2):291-310 Hustinx, L. (2003). Reflexive modernity and styles of volunteering: The case of the Flemish Red Cross volunteers Leuven: Departement Sociologie (doctoral dissertation).

Hustinx, L. and Lammertyn, F. (2003). Collective and reflexive styles of volunteering: A sociological modernization perspective. Voluntas, 14(2): 167-187

Date received: September 30, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caml-33.