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This article develops and tests a general hypothesis derived from a theoretical perspective that links the individual-level outcome of voluntary association membership to the aggregate-level feature of town heterogeneity. The hypothesis predicts that heterogeneity will be negatively related to membership because, ceteris paribus, the potential for homophilous social network ties decreases with heterogeneity. The research examines heterogeneity with respect to four sociodemographic variables: education, income, industry, and race. To correctly separate individual effects from structural effects, nonlinear hierarchical models are employed. The results from models separately including each type of heterogeneity provide support for the hypothesis. Estimates from a model including all four types of heterogeneity suggest that race heterogeneity has the strongest impact on affiliation, although the effect of education heterogeneity also remains. The article concludes with a discussion of how future research on voluntary associations might further consider heterogeneity, with special emphasis on race heterogeneity.

Researchers have claimed that trends in voluntary association participation provide the starting point for examinations of social capital—a reflection of the quality of social ties at the individual or community level of analysis. This research addresses the link between participation in voluntary associations and social capital by examining trends in U.S. participation levels over a 21-year period. Using data from the General Social Survey (1974-1994), the findings demonstrate that, although aggregate voluntary association participation decreased between 1974 and 1984, participation increased in the later half of the time period. Further analyses disaggregating participation by the type of voluntary association demonstrate that participation in all but four types of association either increased or remained stable over the period. The article concludes with implications for future research exploring the relationship between voluntary association participation and social capital.

The volunteer rate in the United States varies from a high of 44% in Utah to a low of 18% in a bordering state, Nevada. Hierarchical nonlinear modeling techniques are used to test various theories such as demographic, institutional and cultural theory to explain general, religious, and secular volunteering with a nationally representative sample of nearly 300,000 respondents in 50 states. Household composition, race heterogeneity, and the density of nonprofit organizations influence the general volunteering rate. Religious volunteering is influenced by household composition, race heterogeneity, the density of religious congregations, and the religiosity of the residents of the state. The secular volunteer rate is influenced by household composition, race heterogeneity, and the density of nonprofit organizations.

Competing demands from work and family make it difficult for women to do volunteer work. An analysis of data from the Young Women's Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey (1978-1991) shows that homemakers are more likely to volunteer than are full-time workers, followed by part-time workers. Mothers of school-age children are the most likely to volunteer, followed by childless women and mothers of young children. Mothers of school-age children are even more likely to volunteer if they are homemakers, and mothers of pre-school children are even less likely to volunteer if they work full-time.

Occupational sex segregation is well documented. Research on voluntary associations shows that these also are segregated by sex. However, little is known about the connections between these institutions. In this research, we explore the effects of occupational sex composition on the sex composition of respondents' voluntary memberships. We find a positive relationship between the sex composition of men's occupations and the sex composition of their voluntary memberships. This effect is found for women only when full-time homemaking is considered as an occupation. We attribute differences in our findings to the nature of occupational ties in social networks.

Significant concentrations of people in areas have led scholars to argue that humans will be inevitably affected by disasters. A primary component of preparation for and recovery from disasters is the volunteer. Building on prior studies, this research uses nationally representative data from the Current Population Survey to examine volunteering for emergency preparedness and disaster relief (EPR) service. The results indicate that, compared to those who perform more general volunteering tasks, volunteers for disaster relief tasks are likely to be younger and less educated. Additional analyses show that relief volunteers are more likely than general volunteers to be asked to volunteer directly by someone in an organization, underscoring the importance of network ties to recruitment for this type of volunteering.

When crises hit communities, some expect a withdrawal from community involvement while others predict the disaster will inspire more volunteers to help. Case studies and anecdotal reports in the media suggest that the pro-social response predominates, but this has not been demonstrated scientifically. We analyze data from 120 U.S. metropolitan areas (2007-2009) to assess the association between the recent housing crisis on volunteering. Although foreclosures increased in most areas, the crisis hit some cities harder than others. Using fixed-effects models, we find that cities experiencing increases in foreclosures exhibited increases in volunteering rates. Furthermore, we observe that volunteering among homeowners increased in response to the foreclosures, but the rate for renters was unaffected. We conclude that residents of communities afflicted by the economic crisis respond in a pro-social manner, but this response tends to occur among residents of communities most affected by the crisis or most likely to identify with its victims.