Do migrants really volunteer less?

Last Monday's Sydney Morning Herald featured a front page story about a study by Melbourne academic Ernest Healy which supposedly shows that migrants from non-English speaking countries are less likely to be volunteers than Australian-born people or migrants from English-speaking nations.

"When you create societies from mixed backgrounds it may not lead to overt violence … but to something scarier, a withdrawal from the civic sphere," Dr Healy said, "a feeling of less connectedness."

While the study was done in Melbourne, Dr Healy said the results were likely to be similar for Sydney. See the full article here.

The story triggered many responses in the Herald's letter page the next day and once again highlighted the dangers of making broad-sweeping statements, which can unfairly prejudice entire communities.

It is open to challenge how the study defined "volunteering". It would appear that the criteria used was one of participating in organised civic, sporting, and welfare organisations. While it may be true that there are less migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds taking part in traditional institutions such as the Salvation Army or Surf Life Rescue, many migrants do regularly volunteer in their local churches, synagogues, mosques, and ethno-specific institutions.

Indeed, the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW itself, which celebrated its 32nd anniversary last year has primarily depended on the work of volunteers in its executive and management committees- and all of these people have been from migrant backgrounds. This is also the case with many of the ECC's organisational members

If truth be told, there has been a general decline in volunteering in Australia in recent decades. That is why the Department of Disability Ageing and Home Care (NSW) is currently funding The Future of Volunteering project, via New South Wales Meals on Wheels to address this issue. Clearly, the blame cannot be laid on any particular communities.

It is instructive to observe that over 80,000 people enjoyed the public celebrations of Chinese New Year over the last weekend in the City of Sydney. No doubt the success of the event came about due to the hardwork of many volunteers. It is not implausible to suggest that most of these will be people from Chinese Australian (and therefore non-English speaking) backgrounds.