European volunteering: comparisons, individual and country determinants

Comunicação apresentada em First international conference of ERNOP, Vienn

The volunteering of older people: the cross European vision

Trabalho apresentado em First international conference of ERNOP, 7 jnho 2011, Vienna, AustriaThe volunteering is one of the very important human activities which depend on many factors. Social political cultural and economical activity influences the levels of volunteering in the countries. On the western economies the volunteering have gain the significance with increasing tendency to enlarge it in the future. This activity is seems to have particular importance for the older people. They usually have more time, most of them are retire and their volunteering work is, fundamental support for the many volunteering organization. The objective of this paper is to characterize the older volunteers, identify types of volunteering activities they are enrolled and to explore the differences between the volunteerism in different European countries. The data used on this paper belong to the wave four of integrated World Value Survey.N/

To volunteer or not to volunteer? A cross-country study of volunteering

Comunicação apresentada em 5th Annal Meeting of the Portuguese Economic Journal - Aveiro, 8-9 July 2011This paper uses data from the 4th wave of the European Values Survey (EVS) to inves- tigate the factors that in uence the decision to participate in volunteering activities, con- sidering both volunteering in general as well as volunteering in particular types of activities. Like previous studies we include several socioeconomic and demographic variables. However our study also includes attitudinal variables and country dummy variables that capture the impact of country speci c factors. Our results show that there are signi cant di¤erences across countries in the propensity for volunteering and that the determinants of volunteering are quite di¤erent for the various types of volunteering

Sports Facilities and Social Responsibility: A Challenge for the Decade

Trabalho apresentado no 1st World Sustainability Forum, 1-30 novembro 2011The last decade of the XX century consolidated a new vision of development that involved not only the natural environment, but also socio-cultural aspects in a prominent position, argued that the quality of life of human beings became the condition for progress. This proposal is based on sustainable development considering the preservation for future generation’s current use of natural resources. We cannot imagine the functioning of the developed societies without major hospitals, shopping malls, sports facilities, public transport stations, public institutions, schools, waste treatment plants etc.. The construction of such equipment involves huge amounts of money and produces a significant impact on the neighbourhood. These impacts on the economy, called externalities, can be positive or negative. Looking at the issue of community facilities from a macroeconomic point of view, a proper functioning of such equipment is essential for the development of local communities and general society. Amidst the global crisis, the best and most profitable use of such equipment enhances its positive impacts on society, which is supposed to be inclusive, and creates the structural conditions for social and economic growth. Many of those items can be better managed taking into consideration social sustainability by creating conditions for local and country development. A more inclusive and participatory society is one of the key objectives of Europe 2020. The EU commission has identified three elements for the growth of the European state in the coming years: smart growth, sustainable growth (making our production more efficient in terms of resources, while boosting our competitiveness), inclusive growth (increased rate of participation in the labour market, acquiring skills and the fighting poverty). For the success of this strategy for the next decade, it is essential to have a social vision of the market. Improved management of such equipment can create opportunities for civic engagement of local citizens, for education and even for the creation of micro-business around the equipment. The greater involvement of citizens also allows channelling the energies of many social groups to make the social goals comprehensive, providing the appearance of a more participatory society. Companies today face many management problems of social sustainability in its various dimensions such as: demographic changes, social justice, education, health, among others. The proper management approach has to be an answer on how to deal with these problems. The objective of our work is the introductory analyses of the state of art of the management for social sustainability objectives of the sports facilities in Portugal. After this introductory analysis, we will propose the creation of a methodological guide for managers of these public facilities, in order to include the social sustainability aspects on their task and management objectives.N/

Volunteers’ perspectives on work and leisure

Trabalho apresentado em 11 International Conference of theInternational Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR), 22-25 julho 2014, Muenster, AlemanhaN/

O valor económico do voluntariado do CNE - Corpo Nacional de escutas

O voluntariado tem um papel muito importante nas economias ocidentais. As falhas do sistema da Economia do Bem-estar, e o crescimento das necessidades sociais relacionadas com a alteração das relações sociais e das estruturas familiares estão a criar novas necessidades sociais e a tornar as actuais cada vez mais complexas. O voluntariado tem assumido um papel importante na redução desses problemas. O valor acrescentado produzido pela atividade de voluntariado tem crescido nos últimos anos e a percentagem de voluntários também tem aumentado. Portugal não constitui uma excepção nesta matéria, embora os indicadores de voluntariado sejam relativamente baixos. O voluntariado representa neste momento nos países da Europa entre 1% a 2 % do Produto Interno Bruto segundo muitos investigadores. A medição do valor económico do voluntariado é bastante difícil e constitui um desafio extremamente interessante para os investigadores. A questão à partida é a correta definição de voluntariado. Na Europa não existe consenso a propósito desta definição. Por outro lado existem dois tipos de voluntariado: o voluntariado formal e o informal. Enquanto o voluntariado formal (trabalho dentro das instituições) é mais fácil de apurar, o apuramento do valor do voluntariado informal, (entreajuda e apoio na comunidade), constitui um problema. Este trabalho irá apresentar a valorização do trabalho dos voluntários dentro de uma organização que trabalha com jovens, ou seja, o Corpo Nacional de Escutas. Vai ser valorizado portanto o trabalho voluntário formal. A valorização deste trabalho foi feita tendo por base os inquéritos distribuídos entre o fim de 2011 e o início de 2012, em todo o País. A metodologia usada foi a FTE (Full Time Equivalent) e foram utilizados dados sobre o valor do trabalho/hora de diferentes tipos de trabalho, extraídos do inquérito ao trabalho fornecido pelos serviços do ministério do trabalho atualizados a 2012.The volunteering pay an important role on western economies. A failure of welfare economy, growing social necessities related with changes in social and families’ structures created new social demand and became the actual ones more complex. The volunteering assumed the important role in solved those problems. The add value created by the volunteering activities is growing as so the number of volunteers. We observed the same tendency in Portugal although the level of participation still rather low. Following some investigators (Prouteau 2008) the volunteer activity represent about 1-2 % of Gross Internal Product. The measure of volunteer activities is a big and very interesting challenge for research. Start from the beginning, the correct defining of volunteer activity is difficult and even in Europe didn’t exist the consensus about is definition. The second problem is that we have two types of volunteering: formal and informal. While the formal volunteering (inside the institutions) is easier to count the informal volunteering, support and help in the community, is a problem. In this work we presented the measurement of formal volunteer activity inside the organization which works with young people - Portuguese Scout Association. We based our work on inquiries distributes between end of 2011 and the Mai of 2012 in all country. The methodology used was FTE (Full Time Equivalent). The evaluation of different types of volunteer work was made considering the data form ministry of labor updated to 2012

Housing cooperatives in Portugal. The end of social purposes?

En Portugal las cooperativas se desarrollaron mucho a partir de 1975 con el cambio de Régimen Político. El peso en la economía Portuguesa de las cooperativas en el PIB (2005) es cerca del 8,8 % del volumen de negocios y las cooperativas de vivienda suponen el 3,3 de este tipo. Durante los últimos treinta años el funcionamiento de las cooperativas de vivienda ha cambiado, principalmente en su principal objetivo, el de proporcionar una alojamiento a las familias con pocos ingresos y por lo tanto mejorando sus condiciones/calidad de vida. A día de hoy muchas cooperativas funcionan como empresas, quienes promueven viviendas para familias de ingresos medios/medios-altos. Esto parece contrario al objetivo principal de las cooperativas de vivienda desde el cambio de régimen político de 1975. ¿Qué ha pasado? Durante los últimos treinta años muchas cosas han cambiado. La acción política se ha visto progresivamente alejada del control estatal, minando el objetivo social de las cooperativas de vivienda., creando problemas financieros, eliminando la iniciativa (privada), disminuyendo la disponibilidad de terrenos de construcción, y especulación en el sector inmobiliario. Las cooperativas de vivienda están trabajando en un mercado con muchos fallos. Información asimétrica, precios, características únicas del sector inmobiliario y falta de competitividad son algunos de los muchos problemas que existen en este sector. Las políticas públicas también influyen en estas características. Nosotros demostramos en este trabajo que durante los treinta años de existencia de las cooperativas de vivienda en Portugal el objetivo social de proveer de vivienda a los individuos de bajos ingresos ha cambiado considerablemente y que el objetivo de residencia de las casas también ha cambiado. Esto nos lleva a preguntarnos si el objetivo social de las cooperativas de vivienda ha sido cumplido. Hemos usado un cuestionario para descubrir por qué la gente busca las cooperativas de vivienda, cuáles son sus ventajas y cuál es el nivel de ingresos de sus miembros.In Portugal housing cooperatives (co-ops) developed greatly after the 1975 change of political regime. The economic weight of cooperatives in national GDP (2005) is about 8.8% of total business volume and housing cooperatives make up about 3.3% of this total. During the last 30 years the functioning of housing cooperatives has changed, particularly in the principal objective of providing reasonable accommodation for lower-income families and thereby improving their living conditions/quality of life .Today many housing cooperatives function as companies, which promote housing for the middle or middle-upper income but not for the lower income groups. This seems contrary to the principal objective of the cooperatives since the 1975 change in political regime. What happened? During the last thirty years many things changed. Political policy has seen a progressive retreat of state control, undermining the social objective of housing co-ops, creating financial problems, disappearance of incentives, diminished availability of lands for construction and speculation in the housing sector. Housing co-ops are functioning in a market that has many failures. Asymmetric information, prices, unique characteristics of housing and competitiveness in the market are some of the many problems that exist in this sector. Public policy also influences these characteristics. We demonstrate in this paper that during the thirty years of existence of housing co-ops in Portugal the social objective to promote houses for low-income individuals has changed considerably and the target resident the houses has also changed. This leads us to question if the social objective of housing co-ops is being achieved. We used a questionnaire to discover why people look for cooperative housing, what the advantage of cooperative housing is and what the members’ income level is.Au Portugal les coopératives se sont beaucoup développées à partir de 1975 avec le changement de Régime Politique. Le poids dans l'économie Portugaise des coopératives le PIB (2005) est près de 8,8 % du volume d'affaires et les coopératives de logement supposent 3,3 de ce type. Pendant les trente dernières années le fonctionnement des coopératives de logement a principalement changé, dans son objectif principal, d'une en fournissant un logement aux famillas avec peu de revenus et par conséquent en améliorant ses conditions / qualités de vie. À un aujourd'hui beaucoup de coopératives fonctionnent comme les entreprises, qui provoquent des logements pour des familles de revenus moyens/moyens-hauts. Cela semble contraire à l'objectif principal des coopératives de logement depuis le changement de régime politique de 1975. Qu'est-ce qui a passé ? Pendant les trente dernières années beaucoup de choses ont changé. L'action politique s'est progressivement trouvée éloignée du contrôle étatique, en minant l'objectif social des coopératives de logement., en créant des problèmes financiers, en éliminant l'initiative (privée), en diminuant la disponibilité de terrains de construction, et une speculation dans le secteur immobilier. Les coopératives de logement travaillent sur un marché avec beaucoup de jugements. Une information asymétrique, des prix, des caractéristiques uniques du secteur immobilier et dépourvus de compétitivité sont certains de beaucoup de problèmes qui existent dans ce secteur. Les publiques politiques influent aussi sur ces caractéristiques. Nous démontrons à ce travail que pendant les trente ans d'existence des coopératives de logement au Portugal l'objectif social de fournir d'un logement les individus de bas revenus a considérablement changé et que l'objectif de résidence des maisons a aussi changé. Il nous porte à nous demander cela si l'objectif social des coopératives de logement a été compliment. Nous avons utilisé un questionnaire pour découvrir pourquoi les gens cherchent les coopératives de logement, quelles ce sont ses avantages et quel est le niveau de revenus de ses membres

Rates of participation in volunteering and characteristics of volunteers: european comparisons

Trabalho apresentado em 9th International Conference of the International Society for Third-Sector Research, 7-10 julho 2010, Istanbul, TurkeyN/

Sistemas de certificação da qualidade nas instituições de respostas sociais

Dar resposta às necessidades sociais, neste momento de crise, constitui um dos problemas mais prementes das economias europeias. A grave crise financeira reflete-se nas respostas dadas pelos estados às necessidades sociais. A eficácia e a qualidade desse tipo de serviços começa a ser um assunto muito complexo e muitas vezes difícil de resolver, mas a que urge dar resposta. O aparecimento de muitas empresas privadas que visam dar a respostas as crescentes necessidades sociais é outro elemento a considerar no contexto da economia social. A competitividade deste sector, nomeadamente do ponto de vista da rentabilidade financeira, assume que a qualidade dos serviços é uma componente essencial. Nos últimos anos tem-se assistido ao aumento significativo da certificação dos sistemas da qualidade das respostas socias. Em Portugal existem 2 esquemas específicos de certificação nas respostas socias a certificação Equass (European Quality Assurance in Social Services) e a certificação segundo os modelos do ISS (Instituto da Segurança Social). A existência destes esquemas a par da certificação baseada na ISO 9001, criou a necessidade deste estudo comparativo de análise e discussão das experiências acumuladas, no sentido de dar uma informação mais precisa ao mercado dos serviços sociais, bem como de identificar as principais necessidades de formação profissional do setor. O início recente dos trabalhos de uma Comissão Técnica de Normalização sobre Sistemas de gestão da qualidade nas respostas sociais veio, ainda reforçar a necessidade já identificada.In this time of crisis, the answers for social needs are one of the most pressing problems of European economies. With worsening financial crisis, which is reflected in the answers given by the state of this problem, efficiency and quality of such services start to be a very complex subject and often difficult to resolve. The emergence of many private companies that seek to give answers to the growing social needs is a fact. Faced with competition in this sector, which becomes increasingly interesting from the point of view of financial profitability, service quality is thus an essential point. In recent years we are witnessing a significant strengthening of quality assurance of institution which works in that area. In Portugal there are two types of the quality certification in that area: Quality Assurance in Social Services (EQUASS Assurance) (European Certification) and ISS certification (Social Security Institute - Portuguese certification). There is therefore a need to study, analyze and standardize these two types of certification in order to give more accurate information to the market of social services about what kind of certification should be adopted. This is precisely the goal of our work. In this paper we will analyze these two types of certification with the goal of standardizing procedures for a single certification of social responses. We will also analyze what kind of quality certification is adopted by the institutions already certified in the area of social intervention

Utilização de estratégias pedagógicas diversificadas para o ensino de economia a alunos de gestão no ensino politécnico

Comunicação apresentada nas XIV Jornadas Luso Espanholas de Gestão Científica, Ponta Delgada - AçoresEste trabalho descreve experiências de ensino de economia a alunos de gestão, em duas disciplinas: Princípios de Economia (disciplina de carácter introdutório) e Ambiente Económico (disciplina de continuação), através da diversificação das estratégias de aprendizagem, distanciando-se do ensino tradicional expositivo onde o docente é o principal protagonista. Considerando, a natureza específica de cada disciplina, na disciplina introdutória deverão ser adquiridos conceitos instrumentais, de uma forma clara que permita gerar segurança, para que, quando aplicados na disciplina de continuação os alunos sejam capazes de questionar e discutir. Ou seja, a disciplina introdutória transmitiria um saber certo (mais próximo do ensino secundário), enquanto que, a disciplina de continuação apostaria num saber relativo, questionável e apelante ao espírito crítico. Estas estratégias pedagógicas diversificadas permitem responder de forma mais adequada a turmas cada vez mais heterogéneas e aumentar a literacia económica.This work describes the experience of teaching two courses of economics to management students at a polytechnic in Portugal. The teaching strategies used in the introductory course, “The Principles of Economics”, and the following course “The Economic Environment”, are neither of the traditional lecture type nor with the teacher’s role as one of “sage on the stage”. The objectives of the first course are to enable students to clearly understand the concepts and instruments they will need to question and discuss in their following course. The introductory subject is expected to provide the descriptive knowledge (similar to their secondary-school knowledge), while the following discipline should provide for procedural knowledge which helps cultivate a critical spirit in the students. These diverse strategies represent a way of responding to the needs of students in increasingly larger heterogeneous classes with the objective of improving students’ economic literacy