Voluntary Work in Denmark 2004-2012 - in General and within the Field of Social Policy

In recent years political interest has bee intensive concerning the possibilities for civil society and voluntary work to relieve the strained governemnet services in social care and help for dealing with social problems. Many initiatives have been established to stimulate voluntary work and expectations are high around the potential for voluntary work within the social field. This article will deal with to what extent these expectations looks to be met, and why this is the case. The departure will be two population surveys (partly panel survey) carried out in 2004 and 2012/13 in Denmark on voluntary work within different fields of society. The 2012/2013 study include socalled new forms of voluntary work, such as work limited in time (One day or one week efforts) and voluntary work based on the internet beyond the ITC work that follows with ordinary work in associations/organisations of the civil society. The paper is part of the work in a network of researchers from a number of Danish universities around developments in civil society and voluntary work.