Women Are More Generous Than Men: But Why?

The recent Women Give Report 2010 continues the line of recent research supporting the finding that women are more generous than man, when comparing women and men with similar economic characteristics. These findings can help women all over the world realize that they too have a potential to give, and to give generously.  This is important from a sociological perspective: people display behavior that is accepted and preferably stimulated by peers. Showing that women are generous, even when they have small purses, can and will facilitate future donations by other women.

           

However, one question that remains largely unanswered, and which I find very interesting, is why women are more generous than men (under similar economic circumstances). In the literature we can find some suggestions for answers to this question.  A first answer can be traced back to the different in evolutionary development of men and women. From an evolutionary perspective, women are more generous than men, because they benefitted more from displaying prosocial behavior. As primatologist Frans de Waal argues in his recent book The Age of Empathy, empathic concern can be traced back to early primal evolution and was developed simultaneously with parental care. Females expressing empathic concern for their offspring had greater reproductive success than their counterparts without this prosocial trait. Empathic concern -feeling concern for others-  facilitates helping behaviour, among which we today include financial generosity towards unknown others. A first explanation for gender differences in generosity can thus be found in the different evolutionary development of empathic concern in men and women. WPI Research Committee member and sociologists Chris Einolf has published research in support of this gender difference. He shows that women score higher on prosocial psychological traits, such as agreeableness (which is closely related to empathic concern) and prosocial role identity, than men do. This drives part of the gender difference in generous behaviour.

           

Sociological research has put great emphasis on the importance of social networks for generosity behavior. Research shows that up to 85% of the charitable gifts are made following a request. Women typically have larger social networks, and particularly religious networks. Through these networks they receive many requests for donations. And from other research we know that people (both men and women) are more likely to comply with a request for a gift when asked by someone you personally know. Because women have larger social networks, they receive more personalized requests for donations then men do, and hence they donate more often and higher amounts.

           

A final explanation for the difference in generosity between men and women comes from the stronger religiosity of women. A large portion of charitable donations are made to religious organizations and institutions. People who are more religiously affiliated give more to religion, but give more to secular causes as well. On average, women are more religious than men. Not only do they express stronger feelings of religiosity, they also attend religious services more often than men do. Thus, because women have stronger religious affiliation, this impacts their generosity.

These are three examples of explanations for the stronger generosity of women compared with men. Future research by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute is needed to explore more explanations to answer the intriguing question of why women are more generous than men.

Guest blogger Pamala Wiepking is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She is a member of the Erasmus Center on Strategic Philanthropy (ECSP). Her research focuses on interdisciplinary explanations of international philanthropy, and is funded by a four year grant from the Netherlands Scientific Organization (NWO). Pamala initiated the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP), which currently has over 70 members in 17 countries, and is currently serving as a board member. She is also an Adjunct Fellow affiliated with the Australian Center of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Pamala is a member of the editorial board for the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing.  Dr. Wiepking is a member of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute Research Committee.

"Time is Money" or Is It?

People choose to donate to philanthropic causes through donations of both time and money.  Given that a person must give up an hour of some other activity (like paid work) to give an hour to a charity, how do people view the relationship between gifts of time and gifts of money?  Do people choose to give time, when they have relatively more available time versus available money?  Or is it that certain people are the “giving type” thus they choose to give both time and money.  Previous research has found that people who give money are more likely to give time (e.g.  Brown and Lankford, Journal of Public Economics, 1992), so it may appear that some people are just the “giving type”.[i]

If we believe that certain people are “givers” of both time and money, then when we find that a particular group is especially likely to give money, we may naturally want to check if they are also more likely to give time.  The recent report “Women Give 2010” by Women’s Philanthropy Institute finds that over all income levels single female headed households were more likely to give monetary donations than single male headed households.  After reading this report, as a PhD candidate in Economics at UC San Diego, I naturally started to wonder if women were also more likely to give time than men. 

At first glance, I wasn’t certain that women would give more time than men in the recent past.  Women have likely surpassed men in their monetary donations because women have become increasingly more educated and more involved in paid work.  Increases in education and paid work may lead to higher household income and greater availability of money to donate to philanthropy.  But, this increase in paid work may also be coupled with less time available to volunteer.  In fact from 1965 to 1993 married working age women decreased their weekly hours volunteered (Tiehen, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2005), and full time employed women have a lower propensity to volunteer at their child’s school than part time employed women (Gee, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2010).

Yet, using a very basic analysis, it appears that women are not only more likely to donate money, but in general they are also more likely to donate time as well.  Using roughly the same income categories as the “Women Give 2010” report, I found that on average single women in 3 of the 5 income categories had a higher average rate of volunteerism than single men.[ii]  If I include married persons, then women have a higher average rate of volunteerism in all but one income category.  Note that these are simply the average rates of volunteering, and so they are not directly comparable to the data included in the “Women Give 2010” report, which controlled for a number of other variables (age, education etc.).

Guest blogger Laura Gee is a doctoral candidate at the University of California San Diego and recipient of the 2010 WPI Dissertation Fellowship.

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[i] I am not claiming that gifts of time and gifts of money are compliments in the economic sense of the word.  For a great analysis of whether time and money are substitutes or compliments see Feldman, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2010.

[ii] Income range 1: $0-$24,999, Income range 2: $25,000-$49,999, Income range 3: $50,000-$74,999, Income Range 4: $75,000-$99,9999, Income Range 5: $100,000 and above.

This HOT Trend in Philanthropy is a CLASSIC

The HOT trend in philanthropy has been emerging on the landscape for forty years; her influence and impact are felt in communities across the world.  Although women have been philanthropic throughout history, women’s evolving economic position and social roles over the past forty years have begun to create a seismic transformation in their ability to give treasure as well as time and talent.  More women are college graduates and beyond.  More women are in the workforce.  Women have increasing access to income and wealth.  Family structures have changed.  These cultural, social, and economic shifts have accentuated conditions for more women to be philanthropically engaged. 

Research on the role of gender in philanthropy over the last ten years is ahead of practice.  Research findings from a variety of substantive, empirical studies affirm the key role of women as givers and philanthropic decision-makers.  The most recent study conducted by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and released today in the report Women Give 2010 firmly places women as less of a trend and more of a classic on the philanthropic landscape.

For Women Give 2010 we examined giving by single men and women across five income groups, ranging roughly from $23,000 to $100,000+ a year, controlling for factors that affect philanthropic behavior such as income, wealth, education, race, number of children, religion, and health of household.  The results show that women across nearly every income level compared to men are MORE LIKELY TO GIVE and GIVE MORE than their male counterparts – in many cases, nearly twice as much.

Other research conducted in the last five years at the Center on Philanthropy examined empathy and caring, two motives for giving.  Males scored significantly LOWER on both of these motives and were significantly LESS LIKELY to give than women.  Another study on charitable decision making in households found that the wife is more than TWICE AS LIKELY as the husband to decide how much to give and to what causes. 

Research shows that males and females approach giving differently.  They think differently about giving and give to different causes.  Better understanding how men and women give will enable fundraisers to tailor appeals to more closely meet all donors’ interests and needs.

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute is the only institution that delivers research about the spectrum of women’s philanthropic activity worldwide.  Our vision is to change the way people think about women and philanthropy.  Current research by our colleagues is expanding and deepening understanding of how and why gender is important to philanthropy.  Tomorrow you will hear from Laura Gee, the 2010 WPI Dissertation Fellow who is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Californian San Diego.  Next week Dr. Pamala Wiepking, Department of Sociology & Erasmus Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands, will respond to the Women Give 2010 study from an international perspective.

We’d like to hear from you, too. How do you think this research will change the environment for women’s philanthropy.