We have to hear a lot about the things “millennials” supposedly don’t excel at, like getting jobs, drinking beer, and voting. So at last, America, here’s something heartwarming about kids these days: they’re more likely than their parents to call volunteering a “very important obligation.”
Every other “civic duty” on the Associated Press-GfK poll gets a bit of a shrug from millennials as compared to older Americans—jury duty, keeping up with public affairs, voting. Volunteering is the one and only category millennials were more likely to value than their elders.
An AP write-up of the poll chalks this partially up to “a volunteering infrastructure that has grown exponentially since their parents’ day, when the message typically came through churches or scouting.”
This is not the first study to suggest that more young people are volunteering. According to one 2014 survey of employed millennials, 47 percent had volunteered in the last month. 87 percent had donated to a nonprofit, most with a gift of over $100.
Twenty percent of all adults under 30 volunteered in 2013, which is more than twice the percent that did the same in 1989, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service.
AP predicts the millennial generation, like other generations, will reach their volunteering peak in their 30s and 40s, which is when most people have time to devote to charitable works. Although with many millennials fighting off their student loan debt, they might take a little longer than past generations to get to that stage.
Staying on top of the news is the “civic duty” that got hit the hardest these last few decades–only 37 percent of Americans think this is an important duty, compared to 56 percent in 1984. And among millennials, only 28 percent consider the news important.
Other things young people are now less likely to care about include reporting a crime to the authorities, and requiring U.S. citizens to speak English.
Read more on the results of the Associated Press-GfK poll.
