Qual o valor económico do trabalho voluntário?

: o caso das coletividades de cultura, recreio e desporto em Portugal

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the question “What is the economic value of volunteer work?” and aims to measure the value of volunteering work performed during 2011 in cultural, recreational and sportive non governamental organizations (Coletividades de Cultura, Recreio e Desporto). This is an area that has been getting increasing attention not only in Portugal, but worldwide. The John Hopkins University (JHU) has been playing a leading role in this area. Recently, and by working together with the International Labour Organization (ILO), JHU prepared a Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work, aiming to encourage countries to gather information on volunteer work regularly and on a comparable basis. In this dissertation the methodology recommended in the Manual is applied to the cultural, recreational and sportive non governamental organizations, the third type of organizations in Portugal with the highest percentage of volunteers in the total number of workers (OEFP, 2008). The methodology adopted to quantify the economic value of volunteer work is the ‘replacement cost’. It consists in calculating the wage bill that would have to be paid if the same work performed by volunteers were to be performed by wage workers. In order to do this, it is necessary to know the number of volunteers in each organization, the number of hours of work according to the function performed by the volunteer and the market wage associated with each function. By using a questionnaire it was possible to gather information on the organizations and through the information made available by GEP (Gabinete de Estratégia e Planeamento, MTSS) it was also possible to obtain market wage values. Based on this information, it was then possible to calculate the economic value of volunteer work performed in these NGOs. Having reached the end of this study, it is possible to say that volunteer work has significant economic value within the Portuguese economy, when considering the employed methodology. As a response to the study hypothesis, it is estimated that in the year of 2011, 147.000 volunteer work hours were performed in the cultural, recreational and sportive non governamental organizations. That value equates to the work of 25 to 33 thousand full time equivalent workers, representing 0,5% of the total number of jobs in Portugal and valuing 300 million Euros (considering ‘replacement cost’ method). When considering all the cultural, recreational and sportive non governamental organizations in Portugal, it is estimated that the volunteer work performed in the year of 2011, is the equivalent to more than 350 thousand full time jobs, valuing 2,7 billion Euros.

Date of Award	2013
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Américo Mendes (Supervisor)