Using data from the 2018 General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, Statistics Canada has released a new article with information on the volunteer activities of Canadians, including volunteer rates and number of volunteer hours, the types of volunteering activities and the sectors benefiting from volunteerism. here are some of the key findings:

• In 2018, over 24 million people volunteered, accounting for 79% of Canadians aged 15 and older.
• Volunteers dedicated approximately 5 billion hours to their volunteer activities, a number of hours equivalent to over 2.5 million full-time year-round jobs.
• There were generational differences in volunteering participation, the number of hours given, and the types of volunteer activities carried out. For example, formal volunteering, that is volunteering mediated by organizations, was more frequent among younger generations and less common among older generations.
• Although they had the lowest formal volunteer rate, mature volunteers (born between 1918 and 1945) contributed the most average hours per year, at 222. In contrast, iGens (born in 1996 and later) gave on average 82 hours of their time.
• iGens (78%) and Millenials (77%) were more likely to be informal volunteers, compared to the older generations of Baby Boomers (73%) and Matures (58%). However, the hours contributed by Matures (176 hours) and Baby Boomers (197 hours) nearly doubled the amount reported by iGens (99 hours).
• The type of informal volunteering differed by generation. Matures and Baby Boomers were most likely to participate in public meetings, while iGens and Millennials were more likely than older generations to disseminate information (online or elsewhere) to raise awareness of an issue.