Solidarity and Volunteering in the Corona Crisis
What drived many Danes to help the elderly, sick neighbors or socially disadvantaged people by shopping for groceries and offering other practical assistance during the COVID-19 outbreak? How did help manifest itself in practice? And who did the help reach?
THE PROJECT IS COMPLETED.
This project investigated the massive mobilization of volunteering and informal help in civil society aiming to alleviate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for vulnerable groups in Danish society. The aim was to produce insight into the supply and demand of help and analyze what mechanisms influence the exchange, e.g. social capital distribution or digitization of volunteering projects from the perspective of both helpers/volunteers and recipients of help.
We combined four data sources:
- A short interval three wave panel survey with a population representative sample of 8,000 adults carried out by Statistics Denmark.
- A short interval three wave panel survey of all of the more than 250 corona help groups that has been organized on Facebook during the crisis so far.
- Extensive ethnographies of Facebook group cultures and interviews of groups and volunteers/helpers and users/helped.
- Big social media data from the Facebook groups analyzed by digital methods.
The study 'Solidarity and volunteering in the corona crisis' examined volunteering during the COVID-19 outbreak through a representative questionnaire survey sent out to 8,000 Danes by Statistics Denmark. This was supplemented by telephone interviews.
The survey identified civil society capacity for citizen-to-citizen assistance and at the same time elucidated whether there were special groups, e.g. certain elderly or marginalised groups that organisations and volunteers did not reach.
At the same time, Facebook groups organising help during the coronavirus outbreak were mapped, and the questionnaire was communicated to the members of these groups in order to combine digital 'big data analysis' of the culture/discourse on social media and survey data on voluntary social engagement.
A subsequent grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark made it possible to repeat the questionnaire surveys, thereby monitoring the development over a longer period. In addition, more detailed analyses of the help groups on Facebook were carried out.
The project was implemented in partnership with the Danish Institute for Voluntary Effort (DIVE).
Below is a map which shows local corona help groups on Facebook.
The map is updated on a regular basis.
December 2020: Hjalmar Bang Carlsen and Jonas Toubøl. Article in the journal Samfundsøkonomen:
Frivillig hjælp og omsorg under coronakrisen: Omfang, socioøkonomisk fordeling og arbejdsdeling i Samfundsøkonomen
December 2020: Ditte Andersen, Sine Kirkegaard, Hjalmar Bang Carlsen and Jonas Toubøl. Article in the journal Contexts:
Co-Production of Care during COVID-19
December 2020: Mia Lunding Christensen, Esben Brøgger Lemminger, Maria Haarmark Nielsen, Jonathan Holm Salka, Benedikte Brincker, Hjalmar Bang Carlsen and Jonas Toubøl. Chapter in the book Det epidemiske samfund, Hans Reitzels Forlag:
Solidaritet og frivillighed under coronakrisen: Netværks betydning for fordelingen af uformel civil hjælp i Det epidemiske samfund:
September 2020: Hjalmar Bang Carlsen, Jonas Toubøl and Benedikte Brincker. Paper in the journal European Societies:
‘On solidarity and volunteering during the COVID-19 crisis in Denmark: the impact of social networks and social media groups on the distribution of support’
The project was also part of the collaborative project Civil society and the co-production of care during the Covid-19 pandemic, with Ditte Andersen and Sine Kirkegaard from VIVE – The Danish Center for Social Scien Research.
Researchers
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Funded by:
The project has received a three year funding from Independent Research Fund Denmark
Project: Solidarity and volounteering in the corona crisis
Period: 2020-2021
Contact
Jonas Toubøl (PI)
Department of Sociology
Mail: jt@soc.ku.dk
Telefon: +45 35 32 32 68
Hjalmer Bang Carlsen (PI)
Department of Sociology/SODAS
Mail: hc@soc.ku.dk
Telefon: +45 35 33 44 49