This document provides key statistics about youth volunteering in Australia and was released in August 2022 in honour of National Student Volunteer Week.
This factsheet focuses on national data from several sources, specifically the General Social Survey (GSS) 2019 and 2020, the Household Impacts of COVID-19 surveys (the February, March, April, and June waves), the 2022 Census, the Mission Australia Youth Survey 2020 and 2021, and four waves of data from the Life in Australia survey conducted by the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods.
Data presented in this factsheet classifies respondents into age groups, and different classifications are used across the eight surveys included. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) typically considers ‘youth’ to include people aged 15-24 years. To include the full extent of trends in youth volunteering, the data presented in this document captures respondents aged 15-34 years across the different datasets.
Additional national data, including data on the characteristics of voluntary work undertaken by young people and their motivations for volunteering, would provide greater clarity on youth volunteering in Australia.
