A qualitative exploration of women's volunteering in human services

Volunteering makes a substantial contribution to human services in Australia but the context in which it takes place has changed over the past twenty years. The changes have been accompanied by differing constructions of voluntary work by governments and researchers. The present research explores how the women volunteers themselves construct their work in the current dynamic environment. The data were collected from ten focus groups of women (120 women) providing human services through formal volunteering. A qualitative analysis revealed that these women constructed their voluntary work through the dominant themes of 'efficacy through caring', 'social connection', and 'recognition (versus exploitation)'. The metaphor of the gift, which encapsulated much of the women's perspective, did not fit easily with the canstructions of governments and researchers. It is argued that any way forward must take into account the understandings of differing stakeholders with the constructions of the volunteers themselves of central focus.