Does volunteer work affect life satisfaction of participants with chronic functional limitations? An empirical investigation

As highlighted in the field of the social determinants of health, welfare programmes need to address psychosocial and material needs, since both are drivers of health conditions. This study is based on the assumption that volunteer work (unpaid activity defined here as ‘social treatment’- policy) may foster a higher life satisfaction of people with a chronic disability (resulting from long-term functional limitations). In particular, the analysis empirically tests a causal effect of an active participation in volunteer work on the life satisfaction of the participants, taking into consideration the role of self-reported quality of the public services provided (transport, emergency health and education services) and the big five individual personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness). For this propose, data provided by ISFOL (Institute for the Professional Training of Workers) for the year 2014 is used. Firstly, a propensity score matching strategy is implemented. This strategy allows to account for potential confounding factors that can affect both a propensity towards being a volunteer and being very satisfied with life. Secondly, a control function approach is also implemented to check the possible presence of a bi-directionality between participation in volunteering and subjective well-being. The results show that life satisfaction is significantly affected by being actively involved in social unpaid activity. A decisive role to carrying out this ‘social treatment’- policy is however attributed to the overcoming of economic and environmental constraints (e.g. low quality of health-care services) especially in Southern Italy.