Youth Volunteering in the States: 2002 to 2006

The research shows that non-college women volunteer at higher rates than their male counterparts and African American and Latino youth with no college experience are the least likely demographic to volunteer. [...] Although service attendance is associated with a significantly higher rate of volunteering among youth with college experience, ties to religious organizations appear to be a more important avenue to volunteering among youth with no college experience. [...] The difference between youth with no college experience and youth with some college experience remain significant regardless of whether they attend religious services or not. [...] When asked about the type of volunteer activity that young people spend most of their time doing, young Americans regardless of college experience are most likely to say they spend most of their time on mentoring youth and teaching/tutoring, although youth with college experience were more likely to report spending most of their time on tutoring than youth without college experience. [...] Youth without college experience are using various forms of new media (text messaging and social networking) at similar rates as their peers with college experience, and a substantial portion of youth without college experience (52%) now use social networking sites for civic purposes.