Informal Volunteering: Trends and Characteristics
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Almost seventy per cent of all volunteering is direct and informal, yet this form of work remains under researched and poorly under- stood (UNV 2018, 2026). The meaning of the term “informal volunteering” is not intuitive and many people doing this work do not consider themselves to be volunteers. Nevertheless, given its magnitude and contribution, it is important to pay attention to this activity.
Informal volunteer work encompasses primarily activities which are undertaken directly, that is organized and carried out person-to-person, but some informal volunteer work is undertaken through registered or unregistered organizations. Direct informal volunteer work is by far the most common form of informal volunteer work (and is indeed the predominant form of volunteer work as a whole); it is also the least well understood. This is due to challenges in visibility, definitions, methods and priorities. Insufficient data impacts how well we understand its forms, functions, benefits and challenges.
In response to these knowledge and evidence gaps, direct informal volunteer work is the focus of this report. The report comprises a literature review combined with findings on informal volunteering from an eight-country survey on volunteer work commissioned by United Nations Volunteers (UNV) between March and May 2025. The countries surveyed were Bolivia, China, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Jordan, Nigeria and Uganda.
SUMMARY
Levels of informal and formal volunteer work vary considerably between countries. Descriptive statistics on overall volunteering rates range from below 30 to nearly 80 per cent among the eight countries surveyed here. Overall, volunteering rates reduce with age, driven by the fall in direct informal volunteering. Younger and older direct informal volunteers spend more time volunteering informally than prime age adults, especially among men. Gender alone does not significantly influence overall engagement in volunteer work. However, the intersection of gender with other demographic characteristics plays a crucial role in shaping volunteering patterns. Women tend to volunteer less when they are engaged in unpaid care within their homes or when they are living with disabilities. Furthermore, women with lower levels of education are statistically significantly more likely than their male counterparts to participate in direct informal volunteer work.
Women and men with higher education levels or higher economic status are more likely to volunteer compared to their less-educated or less-advantaged counterparts. Moreover, men who are still in education are more likely to engage in formal volunteer work rather than direct informal volunteer work. In contrast, younger and older men tend to dedicate more time to direct informal volunteer work, while men in the 25-44 age group participate less in this type of volunteering. Family income has a weaker and more varied relationship with direct informal volunteer work than formal volunteer work. In some countries informal volunteer work increases with family income while in others it falls and in yet others there is no obvious relationship. Being out of work does influence direct informal volunteer work, as people whose primary activity is seeking work and retired women rank among those most likely to be engaged in informal volunteer work.
Other important factors influencing volunteer work include disability and location. People with disabilities or long-term illnesses have the lowest rates of engagement in direct informal volunteer work. Meanwhile, the impact of living in rural areas versus urban areas on direct informal volunteer work varies significantly across countries. There is an almost 20 percentage point difference in China between rural and urban areas, yet no significant difference in Nigeria.
