Solidarity
Donating to charities, doing voluntary work or helping strangers are all examples of showing compassion to others, contributing to the functioning of society and/or supporting the disadvantaged. Income levels can to some extent explain observed differences between countries, but different traditions regarding the supportive role of the state, the community and the family are also important.
On average, people across the Asia/Pacific region are slightly less likely to donate to charities than people living in OECD countries (Figure 4.13). The incidence of donating to charities has declined somewhat across the OECD since 2017/18, while it changed little in the Asia/Pacific region over the past five years (Figure 4.13). People in South-Eastern Asia are 10 percentage points more likely to donate to charity than the average across the Asia/Pacific region. Since 2010, the incidence of donating to charities has been around 15% of people in China, but this proportion had increased in recent years, most notably in 2020 – the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the incidence exceeded 20%.
Alternative ways of showing solidarity can be through helping a stranger or offering time to an organisation or charity. In recent years, the share of people who helped a stranger increased slightly on average across the Asia/Pacific region (Figure 4.14). Indonesia and Malaysia had the largest increase in altruistic behaviour towards strangers over the past decade, while Turkmen and Bangladeshis appear to be the most likely to help a stranger in need.
The share of people who volunteered time also varies across the Asia/Pacific region (Figure 4.15). On average, one in five people volunteered time to an organisation in 2017-29. Indonesia had the highest number of volunteers, showing a large increase since 2007-09. By contrast, less than 10% of the population in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China and Lao PDR made time available for charitable work.
Data on “solidarity” are drawn from the Gallup World Poll. The Gallup World Poll is conducted in more than 150 countries around the world based on a common questionnaire, translated into the predominant languages of each country. With few exceptions, all samples are probability-based and nationally representative of the resident population aged 15 years and over in the entire country, including rural areas. While this ensures a high degree of comparability across countries, results may be affected by sampling and non-sampling error, and variation in response rates. Hence, results should be interpreted with care. These probability surveys are valid within a statistical margin of error, also called a 95% confidence interval. This means that if the survey were conducted 100 times using the exact same procedures, the margin of error would include the “true value” in 95 out of 100 surveys. Sample sizes vary across countries from 1 000 to 4 000, and as the surveys use a clustered sample design the margin of error varies by question. The margin of error declines with increasing sample size: with a sample size of 1 000, the margin of error at a 95% confidence interval is 0.98/√ (sample size) or 3%; with a sample size of 4 000, this is 1.5%. To minimise the effect of annual fluctuations in responses related to small sample sizes, results are averaged over a three-year period, or two-year period in case of missing data. If only one observation in a three-year period is available, this finding is not reported.
The data underlying the solidarity indicators are based on binary questions created by Gallup: “Have you done any of the following in the past month? How about donating money to a charity? How about helped a stranger or someone you didn’t know who needed help? How about volunteering your time to an organisation?” There are no questions about the amount of money donated or the number of hours volunteered.
Source: Gallup World Poll (2021), www.gallup.com.
Source: Gallup World Poll (2021), www.gallup.com.
Source: Gallup World Poll (2021), www.gallup.com.