4147.4.55.001 - Culture and Recreation News, Jul 2001  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 08/08/2001   
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VOLUNTEERS MAKE A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION TO CULTURE AND RECREATION

Results from the second national ABS survey of voluntary work have recently been published in Voluntary Work, 2000 (ABS Cat. no. 4441.0; $22.00).

In the 12 months prior to interview in 2000, there were 1.5 million volunteer involvements in sport and recreation organisations and 270,000 volunteer involvements in arts and cultural organisations. (For each volunteer, the number of 'volunteer involvements' is the number of organisations for which voluntary work was done.) Volunteer involvements in sport and recreation organisations represented 23% of all volunteer involvements during the year, second only to community and welfare organisations (24%) and almost double the number of involvements in arts/culture, environmental and health organisations combined.

In the case of both sport and recreation organisations and arts and cultural organisations, the majority of volunteer involvements were provided by people who had been contributing their efforts for at least a year, with around 20% of volunteer involvements to these organisations provided by people who had been involved for more than 10 years. During 2000, volunteers to sport and recreation organisations contributed a total of 147.7 million hours, while volunteers to arts and cultural organisations contributed a total of 33.6 million hours. In the case of sport and recreation, 62% of the voluntary hours contributed were provided by men. In contrast, women were responsible for 73% of the voluntary hours contributed to arts and cultural organisations.

NCCRS plans to conduct further analysis of the voluntary work data specifically focusing on sport and recreation and arts and culture. Results of this will be made available in the near future.