A Late Modern Transformation of the Motivations to Volunteering? A Social Perspective on Italy

This chapter addresses the subjective meanings of volunteering in complex countries and focuses on the motivations and perceived impacts of organized voluntary action in Italy. The approach of the investigation draws on late modernity theories and takes a social perspective, examining the relations between the motivations to volunteer and the characteristics of both volunteers and the context. The analyses of data based on the ILO Manual (n = 46,000) exploit assumptions about the relevance of territorial cultures and institutions, life course, and social status. The results confirm that there is a multiplicity of subjective meanings for voluntary action and account for the continuities, which appear to prevail, and the changes. The socio-institutional characteristics of Italy are also important. The alleged “late-modern” transformation of volunteering is only partially confirmed, while a socio-ecological approach reveals interdependencies in the consistencies and changes of the subjective interpretations of volunteering.