Trends that Need to Change: Men & Volunteering

So a few weeks ago in church a new member came up to the front of the congregation and put every man sitting in the pews on blast – he said something along the lines of…

I went to Sunday School this morning.  Looked around… and then I thought, “Where all the men at?”  I waited – thought I’d see a brother or two – and no one came down.  ‘Well brothas’ (he really said that), it’s time for the men to step up.

I took his words to heart (in a sense).  They made me think of every anecdotal thing I’ve heard about the men of today not “stepping up” in areas of their lives.  First you hear a problem with fathers.  Then you hear about a lack of male teachers.  Sure we seem to prevail in roles of Corporate Leadership, but being honest – I’m not sure that reflects society all to well these days.  Traditionally a woman would sacrifice to watch the kids and the guy worked.  That’s changing — and I’m not knocking a guy for providing — I genuinely feel like that’s in our blood (most… ok… “a lot” of us anyway).  But we have to recognize that doing something “because you HAVE to do it,” and doing something “because you’re volunteering your time,” are two completely different things.

Putting my friend on blast -- A good example of a man stepping things up is my friend Erik D. Walker (he's the one left in color on the right-side of the pic). Sometimes when he's not changing the world through his posts here on GRDX, he's busy working with other Gents mentoring young men through an organization he helped establish called "The Society of Gentlemen". No he didn't ask me to post this - and I hope he's surprised when he sees it CLICK THE PIC to find out more on what this great group is doing.

So then it hit me — Why not see what the male tendency to volunteer is as a whole in the U.S.? I felt like that was maybe one angle to approach looking at a hypothetical lack of stepping things up – and it also (in a sense) touches on our potential to build the inherent value of leadership a lot of Gents claim to want.

Basically – it’s not a pretty picture (literally)…

CLICK THE PIC to see a larger version of this infographic...

These numbers are from 2009, but the little guy third-from-the-right isn’t carrying his weight.  It’s basically saying that on average 1 out of every 4 men volunteer.  It’s below 25% if you want to get technical.  Sure it’s up 1%  point from 2008 in the infographic, but if you take a look at these figures from 2010 – it doesn’t change much.  Check out the part I bolded…

Volunteering Among Demographic Groups

The volunteer rate of women decreased from 30.1 percent to 29.3 percent in the year ending in September 2010, while the volunteer rate for men, at 23.2 percent, was essentially unchanged. However, women continued to volunteer at a higher rate than did men across all age groups, educational levels, and other major demographic characteristics …

By age, 35-to-44 year olds were the most likely to volunteer (32.2 percent). Persons in their early twenties were the least likely to volunteer (18.4 percent).

Among the major race and ethnicity groups, whites continued to volunteer at a higher rate (27.8 percent) than did blacks (19.4 percent) and Asians (19.6 percent).

The volunteer rate of whites and blacks declined from the prior year. Among Hispanics or Latinos, 14.7 percent volunteered in 2010, the same rate as in 2009.

As in earlier years, married persons volunteered at a higher rate (32.0 percent) in 2010 than did those who had never married (20.3 percent) and those with other marital statuses (20.9 percent). Although the volunteer rate of parents with children under age 18 decreased to 33.6 percent from 34.4 percent in the prior year, parents remained substantially more likely to volunteer than persons without children (23.5 percent).

Individuals with higher levels of educational attainment engaged in volunteer activities at higher rates than did those with less education. Among persons age 25 and over, 42.3 percent of college graduates volunteered, compared with 17.9 percent of high school graduates and 8.8 percent of those with less than a high school diploma.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics – http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.htm – “Volunteering in the United States, 2010″

Looking over those factors made me all the more curious – so I kept digging to somewhat try and explain this phenomena of such lowered male-volunteering.  *For the record – I volunteer at least once every 2 months and mentor regularly.  Don’t want you thinking I’m a hypocrite.*

Age seemed to be touted as a big factor for volunteering – so I took a look at what the multiple generations that make up this country actually like to do (when they volunteer) according to the “Volunteering in America Report” from 2011?

This is a snippet of a larger infographic that can be viewed by CLICKING THE PIC...

That same report also revealed these key findings (as shared by Tobi Johnson)…

• The national volunteer rate has remained at a steady 26% for the past five years (ranging from 26.2% to 26.8% during those years).
• In 2010, the rate for rural volunteers was highest (27.9%), with suburbans running a close second (27.5%), and urbans lagging behind (22.9%).
• The median hours volunteers served in 2010 was about the same for urban (51 hours) as it was for rural and suburban (both at 52 hours)
• The largest percentage of volunteers continue to serve at religious organizations (35% from 2008 to 2010).  Volunteers also favored serving in educational settings (26.7% from 2008 to 2010)
• The top three factors that influenced volunteer rates were…
• 1) percent of residents with a high school degree (85.3%),
• 2) home ownership rate (65.9%),
• 3) multi-unit housing rate (32.7%)
• The poverty rate had a minimal affect on volunteer rates (14.3%) as did the unemployment rate (9.8%) in 2010, 64.5% of volunteers maintained their service for at least a year.

Men come in all ages, religions and poverty levels – so those things couldn’t be the issue when it particularly comes to our gender (although it is interesting information to see), so after that, I dived right into the “married persons” figure.  I’m referring to the one above where it says 32% of married people volunteered vs. 20% of non-married folks.  It made me wonder how many men were married.

Well according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s “America’s Families and Living Arrangements…” from 2008:

…29.4% of men and 22.7% of women ages 18 and over had never married.

So maybe that explained it a bit…  Men just don’t marry as much as women in the U.S. do (as a percentage of their population).  I know, that seems like it goes against the whole “where are all the good men” and “women outnumber men” (which they do) stories – but there you have it from the Census.

And then I saw the bit about education.  It basically looked like the lower the education level, the less likely you were to volunteer (probably because you have to work a lot more to provide a living for yourself with your waking hours – but let’s not bite off more than we can chew in one post).  So I went to an old Ad Age Article from earlier in this year which properly asserts in its tag line that “When It Comes to Education, Men Are Getting Schooled” as “Women Outnumber Men in Earning College Degrees for First Time in U.S. History.”  Check this out (to make it easier for you, Women are the right bar)…

Source: U.S. Census Bureau 2009 Amercian Community Survey (as seen in Ad Age)

Safe to say that women, by the numbers, are smarter than most men now.  It’s a story that we’ve all been told for years, only now men can’t seem to back-up our claims or disputes.  I’m not even going to front and act like I have an interest in going on to pursue an advanced degree.  At the moment (never say “never”) – I have no interest in taking such a course with my Life.

I honestly don’t know what will fix the lack of male “volunteering” at any level in this nation, but it needs to be fixed.  As Gentlemen – we can’t expect to be seen as Supermen unless we are indeed reaching to greater heights.  But to do so, as is portrayed in the heading for this post, we have to put our hands up for something.  We have to put ourselves on the line for something.  We just have to do… SOMETHING… anything so long as we put our all into it.  Would I like to see men take a greater role in “volunteering” in the traditional sense as this post has explored?

Hopefully my answer to that one is obvious.

It’s 2012.  Time to step it up guys and put the “MAN” in Gentleman again.

What do you think?  Do you volunteer regularly?  Tell us about some of your efforts.  Feel free to pass this post around and attempt to inspire as many people as your manly (or womanly) step-upped-ness (that’s not a reall word – haha) leads you to.  Just share your thoughts on the subject of “Men needing to step it up” in the Comment Section below.

Peace and thanks for reading.