Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Women’s philanthropy has drawn much attention during recent years, mostly in studies from the United States or the United Kingdom. Relevant issues are to what extent gender differences in charitable giving exist in another national context and how these differences can be explained. In this study, we examine female and male giving in the Netherlands, using a representative sample of Dutch households (N = 1,692) from the 2010 wave of the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey (GINPS). We conduct bivariate and multivariate regression analyses to test for gender differences and the extent to which they are mediated by values, costs, solicitation, and social pressure. Females turn out to be more likely to give and to give to more different sectors, which can be attributed to their higher prosocial values of empathic concern and the principle of care. Contrary to recent findings in the United States, Dutch males donate higher amounts than Dutch females.

Keywords

philanthropy gender charitable giving fundraising prosocial values

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Andreoni

Brown

Rischall

(2003). Charitable giving by married couples: Who decides and why does it matter? Journal of Human Resources, 38, 111-133.

Andreoni

Vesterlund

(2001). Which is the fair sex? Gender differences in altruism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116, 293-312.

Bekkers

(2004). Giving and volunteering in the Netherlands: Sociological and psychological perspectives (Doctoral dissertation). Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Bekkers

(2005, November). It’s not all in the ask: Effects and effectiveness of recruitment strategies used by nonprofits in the Netherlands. Paper presented at the 34th ARNOVA annual conference, Washington, DC.

Bekkers

(2006). Traditional and health related philanthropy: The role of resources and personality. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68, 349-366.

Bekkers

(2007). Measuring altruistic behavior in surveys: The all-or-nothing dictator game. Survey Research Methods, 1, 139-144.

Bekkers

(2010). George gives to geology Jane: The name letter effect and other similarities in fundraising. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 15, 172-180.

Bekkers

Mariani

(2009). Het gebruik van de giftenaftrek in Nederland, 1977-2007 [The use of the tax deduction in the Netherlands, 1977-2007]. In Schuyt

T. N. M.

Gouwenberg

B. M.

Bekkers

(Eds.), Geven in Nederland 2009: Giften, Sponsoring, Legaten en Vrijwilligerswerk (pp. 176-185). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Reed Business.

Bekkers

Schuyt

T. N. M.

(2008). And who is your neighbor? Explaining the effect of religion on charitable giving and volunteering. Review of Religious Research, 50, 74-96.

10.

Bekkers

Wiepking

(2006). To give or not to give, that is the question: How methodology is destiny in Dutch giving data. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35, 533-540.

11.

Bekkers

Wiepking

(2011a). Accuracy of self-reports on donations to charitable organizations. Quality & Quantity, 45, 1369-1383.

12.

Bekkers

Wiepking

(2011b). A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy: Eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40, 924-973.

13.

Beutel

A. M.

Marini

M. M.

(1995). Gender and values. American Sociological Review, 60, 436-448.

14.

Bolton

G. E.

Katok

(1995). An experimental test for gender differences in beneficent behavior. Economics Letters, 48, 287-292.

15.

Brown

(2005). Married couples’ charitable giving: Who and why. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, 50, 69-80.

16.

Brown

Ferris

J. M.

(2007). Social capital and philanthropy: An analysis of the impact of social capital on individual giving and volunteering. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36, 85-99.

17.

Burgoyne

C. B.

Young

Walker

C. M.

(2005). Deciding to give to charity: A focus group study in the context of the household economy. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 15, 383-405.

18.

Croson

Gneezy

(2009). Gender differences in preferences. Journal of Economic Literature, 47, 448-474.

19.

Derntl

Finkelmeyer

Eickhoff

Kellermann

Falkenberg

D. I.

Schneider

Habel

(2010). Multidimensional assessment of empathic abilities: Neural correlates and gender differences. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 35, 67-82.

20.

Eagly

A. H.

(2009). The his and hers of prosocial behavior: An examination of the social psychology of gender. American Psychologist, 64, 644-658.

21.

Einolf

C. J.

(2011). Gender differences in the correlates of volunteering and charitable giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40, 1092-1112.

22.

Evertsson

England

Mooi-Reci

Hermsen

De Bruijn

Cotter

(2009). Is gender inequality greater at lower or higher educational levels? Common patterns in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. Social Politics, 16, 210-241.

23.

Fine

(2010). Delusions of gender: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

24.

Goodin

R. E.

(2001). Work and welfare: Towards a post-productivist welfare regime. British Journal of Political Science, 31, 13-39.

25.

Kottasz

(2004). Differences in the donor behavior characteristics of young affluent males and females: Empirical evidence from Britain. Voluntas, 15, 181-203.

26.

Lamm

Decety

Singer

(2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. NeuroImage, 54, 2492-2502.

27.

Lin

Dumin

(1986). Access to occupations through social ties. Social Networks, 8, 365-385.

28.

C. P.

Tashiro

(2012). Are women more generous than men? Evidence from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey. Journal of Gender Studies, 1-15.

29.

Mesch

D. J.

Brown

M. S.

Moore

Z. I.

Hayat

A. D.

(2011). Gender differences in charitable giving. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 16, 342-355.

30.

Mesch

D. J.

Pactor

(2016). Women and philanthropy. In Jung

Phillips

Harrow

(Eds.), The Routledge companion to philanthropy (pp. 88-101). Oxford, UK: Routledge.

31.

Mesch

D. J.

Rooney

P. M.

Chin

Steinberg

K. S.

(2002). Race and gender differences in philanthropy: Indiana as a test case. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, 37, 65-77.

32.

Mesch

D. J.

Rooney

P. M.

Steinberg

K. S.

Denton

(2006). The effects of race, gender, and marital status on giving and volunteering in Indiana. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35, 565-587.

33.

Piper

Schnepf

S. V.

(2008). Gender differences in charitable giving in Great Britain. Voluntas, 19, 103-124.

34.

Rooney

P. M.

Brown

Mesch

(2007). Who decides in giving to education? A study of charitable giving by married couples. International Journal of Educational Advancement, 7, 229-242.

35.

Rooney

P. M.

Mesch

D. J.

Chin

Steinberg

K. S.

(2005). The effects of race, gender, and survey methodologies on giving in the US. Economics Letters, 86, 173-180.

36.

Rooney

P. M.

Steinberg

K. S.

Schervish

P. G.

(2001). A methodological comparison of giving surveys: Indiana as a test case. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 30, 551-568.

37.

Rooney

P. M.

Steinberg

K. S.

Schervish

P. G.

(2004). Methodology is destiny: The effect of survey prompts on reported levels of giving and volunteering. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33, 628-654.

38.

Rueckert

Naybar

(2008). Gender differences in empathy: The role of the right hemisphere. Brain and Cognition, 67, 162-167.

39.

Schwartz

S. H.

(2010). Basic values: How they motivate and inhibit prosocial behavior. In Mikulincer

Shaver

P. R.

(Eds.), Prosocial motives, emotions, and behavior: The better angels of our nature (pp. 221-241), Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

40.

Skoe

E. E. A.

Cumberland

Eisenberg

Hansen

Perry

(2002). The influences of sex and gender-role identity on moral cognition and prosocial personality traits. Sex Roles, 46, 295-309.

41.

Smith-Lovin

Miller McPherson

(1993). You are who you know: A network approach to gender. In England

(Ed.), Theory on gender: Feminism on theory (pp. 223-251). New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter.

42.

Sokolowski

S. W.

(1996). Show me the way to the next worthy deed: Towards a microstructural theory of volunteering and giving. Voluntas, 7, 259-278.

43.

Verba

Schlozman

K. H.

Brady

H. E.

(1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

44.

Wiepking

Bekkers

(2010). Does who decides really matter? Causes and consequences of personal financial management in the case of larger and structural charitable donations. Voluntas, 21, 240-263.

45.

Wiepking

Bekkers

(2012). Who gives? A literature review of predictors of charitable giving. Part Two: Gender, marital status, income, and wealth. Voluntary Sector Review, 3, 217-245.

46.

Wiepking

Breeze

(2012). Feeling poor, acting stingy: The effect of money perceptions on charitable giving. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 17, 13-24.

47.

Wilhelm

M. O.

Bekkers

(2010). Helping behavior, dispositional empathic concern, and principle of care. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73, 11-32.

48.

Willer

Wimer

Owens

L. A.

(2015). What drives the gender gap in charitable giving? Lower empathy leads men to give less to poverty relief. Social Science Research, 52, 83-98.

49.

Wilson

Musick

(1997). Who cares? Toward an integrated theory of volunteer work. American Sociological Review, 62, 694-713.

50.

Women’s Philanthropy Institute. (2012). Women give 2012: New research about women and giving. Indianapolis, IN: Women’s Philanthropy Institute.

51.

Yörük

B. K.

(2010). Charitable giving by married couples revisited. Journal of Human Resources, 45, 497-516.