THE UNPAID LEADERS OF FRENCH VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS

ABSTRACT ** :  This paper focuses on the voluntary workers who take on responsibilities in French voluntary associations. First, drawing on a national association survey, we contrast the characteristics of leadership volunteers, especially chairpersons, with those of the French population as a whole. We show that leaders are very different from the overall population even if these differences seem to diminish for organizations created more recently. Second, from a national household survey, we compare board members with other members of associations. Among other results, we find that the former are more rooted in their local environment and they participate more frequently in several associations. They are driven by more activist motives than are the other members. They give more time to their associations and they use more skills in their voluntary tasks than do the other volunteers.     

Relational Goods and Associational Participation

Abstract *** :  In this paper, we focus on the role of interpersonal contact and the possibility of a relational motive to explain participation and volunteering in associations. Drawing on the relational goods theory, we show that associational activities are favorable to production and consumption of such goods. So, associational participants are expected to have more personal interactions. This theoretical hypothesis is tested using a cross‐sectional data set conducted in France in 1999. Our econometric analysis, which controls for endogeneity of associational participation using a simultaneous equations model, emphasizes a significantly positive relationship between this participation and preferences for relational goods .