Study: Women more inclined to give
at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

Dec. 18, 2002

Contact:
Beth Flannigan, (404) 651-3574,bflannigan@gsu.edu
David Van Slyke, 404-651-4697, dvanslyke@gsu.edu
Sarah Eschholz, 404-651-3659, seschholz@gsu.edu

ATLANTA — Women and men in the Atlanta area donate their time and money to charity at similar rates, but they do it for different reasons, according to a new study by Georgia State University researchers.

Proportionally, women give slightly more of their salaries to philanthropic organizations and appear to be more internally motivated than men to do so, the study shows.

“Women are giving an average of 2.4 percent of their income, as opposed to 2.2 percent from men,” says Sarah Eschholz, co-author of the study and assistant professor of criminal justice at Georgia State.

On average, women in the metro Atlanta area donate $1,592 annually to philanthropic organizations, while men donate $1,604.

The study, commissioned by United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, was composed of data collected from a 53-question survey administered to 1,724 residents in 13 metro Atlanta counties.

Eschholz and colleague David Van Slyke, assistant professor of public administration and urban studies, also found that, while men’s degree of giving correlated with their religious attitudes and whether or not they had children, the same was not true of women.

“Women seem to be more socialized to give,” says Eschholz. “They are taught that giving is just the thing to do. Men seem to rely more on external stimuli.”

The study showed women feel more strongly than men about their reasons for giving and want to receive information about how their donations are used.

And although both women and men rated helping the community as the most important reason for giving money, women rated it as significantly more important than men did. In fact, women’s ratings of most reasons to give were significantly higher than men’s, indicating they feel more strongly about their reasons for giving, researchers say.

Women are more likely to get information about philanthropic organizations from religious groups, while men tend to receive information about charities through the media. Both men and women get most of their information through the mail and through friends, the study showed.

Researchers also examined women’s charitable giving by race, education level, income level, and past history of giving and volunteering.

“One very important thing charitable organizations can take from this study is the fact that predictors of giving for men and women are significantly different,” Van Slyke says. “These differences in motivation may give insight into how to target different populations for giving.”

View the full Study: Women more inclined to give (pdf)

Contact David Van Slyke at 404-651-4697 if you have questions or comments regarding the study.

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