Rosa Ammon-Ciągło | Barnard College (original) (raw)
Address: New York, NY, United States
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Papers by Rosa Ammon-Ciągło
This paper uses cross-sectional data from the 2012 US General Social Survey (GSS) to examine the ... more This paper uses cross-sectional data from the 2012 US General Social Survey (GSS) to examine the relationship between differential access to and happiness gains from volunteer work, especially as indicated by race and class. This study contradicts the existing literature on the topic, mostly performed 15 years prior, with the finding that blacks volunteer in higher percentages but experience less happiness associated with volunteering than whites, while they continue to suffer from gaps in human capital attributes (education and socioeconomic status). The paper concludes that as volunteer activity becomes increasingly acceptable as a substitute for paid work experience, the human capital, social capital and status attributes that are disproportionately distributed to whites may be a source of access to categories of volunteer activity that enable growth and application of professional skills, in addition to related psychological/financial benefits. Volunteer activity is therefore framed as a possible variable contributing to systemic disparities in economic success and happiness along racial lines in the United States.
This paper uses cross-sectional data from the 2012 US General Social Survey (GSS) to examine the ... more This paper uses cross-sectional data from the 2012 US General Social Survey (GSS) to examine the relationship between differential access to and happiness gains from volunteer work, especially as indicated by race and class. This study contradicts the existing literature on the topic, mostly performed 15 years prior, with the finding that blacks volunteer in higher percentages but experience less happiness associated with volunteering than whites, while they continue to suffer from gaps in human capital attributes (education and socioeconomic status). The paper concludes that as volunteer activity becomes increasingly acceptable as a substitute for paid work experience, the human capital, social capital and status attributes that are disproportionately distributed to whites may be a source of access to categories of volunteer activity that enable growth and application of professional skills, in addition to related psychological/financial benefits. Volunteer activity is therefore framed as a possible variable contributing to systemic disparities in economic success and happiness along racial lines in the United States.