Census of Population 2022 Spotlight Series: Volunteering in Ireland

Family Status of Volunteers

CSO statistical publication, 01 February 2024, 11am

Census 2022 Results

This publication is part of a series of results from Census 2022.

Volunteering by Marital Status

• Over a fifth of married people (386,818) volunteered in at least one activity.

• In contrast, only 9% of single people (244,936) were involved in volunteering.

• Some 23% of married males (208,476) and 19% of married females (178,342) volunteered in at least one activity.

• Among married males, 13% (115,959) volunteered in a sporting organisation and 6% (58,318) in their community.

• The most common voluntary activity among married females was involvement in the community, accounting for 7% of married females (67,560), followed by voluntary work in a social or charitable organisation at 6% (55,015).

• Among single males, the most common type of voluntary activity was with a sporting organisation at 4% (61,039) and in their community at 2% (33,676).

• Volunteering for a social or charitable organisation and in a sporting organisation was most popular with single females, both at 3%.

• In every county, married men were more likely to volunteer than married women.

• Leitrim had the highest rate of married people volunteering at 26% (3,446) while Dublin City had the lowest at 15% (25,712).

Family Units with Children

For census purposes, a family is defined as a couple recorded with or without children, or one parent with one or more children. Family members must be usual residents of the relevant household. There were 1,279,951 families in the State on Census Night in 2022 and 885,899 of these had one or more children.

• Just over one-fifth (195,884) of families with children had at least one family member who volunteered.

• At 28%, Leitrim recorded the highest proportion of family units with at least one family member involved in a voluntary activity.

• Dublin City had the lowest rate at 17%.

• Just over 100,000 families with children volunteered with a sporting organisation, making it the most popular voluntary activity.

• Galway County had the highest rate of families with children with at least one family member volunteering in a sporting organisation (16%).

• The proportion of families with at least one family member who volunteered varied from 17% of families with one child to 30% of families with four or more children.

Family Units without Children

Of the 1,279,951 families recorded in Census 2022, 394,052 did not have children.

• Just over 72,000 (18%) of family units without children had at least one family member involved in a voluntary activity.

• In Sligo, 23% of families without children (1,328) had at least one member engaged in a voluntary activity.

• Just 14% of family units without children in Dublin City had at least one family member who volunteered.

• Volunteering for a social or charity organisation, in the community or with a sporting organisation were equally popular activities among family units without children, all recording a volunteering rate of 6%.

• Around 8% of family units without children in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown had at least one family member involved in a social or charitable organisation, the highest rate in the country.

• Offaly and Kilkenny had the highest rate of volunteering in a sporting activity for this cohort, both at 8%.

Children

In 2022, 30,133 children under the age of 15 indicated that they volunteered (3% of all children aged under 15).

• The average age of child volunteers was 11.

• More than half of all children who volunteered (15,362) were involved in a sporting organisation.

• These children tended to be slightly older than children who volunteered in other activities.

• Volunteering in the community was the second most common type of voluntary activity among children (9,989), accounting for one-third of children who volunteered.