The results of a nationwide survey by the health insurer Cigna released last year said that nearly 50 percent of respondents in the USA felt alone or left out always or sometimes. Two in Five felt like “they lack companionship,” that their “relationships aren’t meaningful” and that they “are isolated from others.” And the loneliest demographic among respondents was young people: members of Generation Z, born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s, had the highest loneliness score, followed by Millennials. Yesterday, CBS Sunday Morning did segment that mentions this Cigna study and on the growing loneliness epidemic in the USA.

And then there is this report: significantly large numbers regarding unemployment among young people worldwide: in 2017, it was reported by CNN Money that youth unemployment in the eurozone has been stuck between 19% to 25% for the past eight years. In Spain and Greece, it’s north of 40%. The number of people in Italy aged between 15-29 years that are not in education, employment or training rose by 21 percent from 2008 to 2012, to 23.9 percent, and that number hasn’t improved seven years later. In Arab states, youth unemployment is around 30%. The incidence of unemployment among youth in Northern Africa was at 29.3% in 2016, representing the second highest rate across all regions.

Economists and government officials focus on the cost of unemployment to the economy as a whole, but for the unemployed, it’s a personal issue. Young people need jobs for the obvious reason: they need income to give them employment to pay for what they need to survive, day-to-day. But studies have shown that prolonged unemployment harms the mental health of workers and can actually worsen physical health and shorten lifespans as well. Prolonged unemployment can lead to an erosion of skills and, more worryingly, lead to pessimism, resentment and anger. Those negative feelings can be targeted at anyone that an unemployed person blames for their situation – people not from the area, people who are perceived as not at risk for unemployment, people perceived as taking the jobs the unemployed want, government officials, institutions, and anyone who is perceived as different.

While promoting volunteer engagement does nothing to address the immediate financial needs of the unemployed, volunteering can help a person with skills development for a career change and eventual employment. Could volunteer engagement also address other issues, like disconnection from society, resentment and anger for certain groups of people, like immigrants or ethnic minorities, and growing distrust in institutions? Can volunteering can give a person a connection to other people and to society as a whole, help increase their awareness about people and cultures different from their own and help build or restore trust in people and institutions? I think so, though there’s little data that directly supports my position.

When an organization involves volunteers, it gives non-staff a first hand, in-person experience with programs that are trying to improve the community or the environment – anything from promoting the arts to helping children’s education to accommodating dogs and cats that have been found or surrendered. This volunteer engagement can help build trust in organizations, in institutions, in the community and among people. It can give a volunteer a sense of value and influence. Volunteer engagement can play a vital role in building social cohesion and intercultural understanding, bringing together different segments of a population in a setting that can help build relationships and community. Volunteer management is community engagement and, as such, I believe volunteer engagement can help to address youth unemployment, cultural conflicts, intergenerational misunderstandings, integration, community cohesion, social integration, and on and on.

However, I’m not at all calling for business and government to start yet another Get-Out-And-Volunteer campaign. Please, don’t do that. Rather, this is a call for business and government to realize that, if they expect nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other organizations to involve more young people as volunteers, they need to provide the funding for that to happen.

Volunteers are not free. I just don’t know how many times I’m going to have to say that for it to finally be understood. For organizations to involve volunteers effectively, to involve more volunteers and to create opportunities for volunteers that go beyond just getting work done but also to build civic engagement and greater trust in the community, these volunteer-involving organizations must have the expertise to do it – which may come from training (which isn’t free) or hiring staff (also not cost-free) – and they may need additional resources to support additional volunteers, such as software or physical spaces.

Are corporations, governments, foundations and individual donors ready to step up and fund what’s needed to increase volunteer engagement, especially among young people?

April 16, 2019 update: Since the late 1960s, researchers have surveyed young people on their levels of empathy, testing their agreement with statements such as: “It’s not really my problem if others are in trouble and need help” or “Before criticizing somebody I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place.” According to this NPR article, Sara Konrath, an associate professor and researcher at Indiana University, collected decades of studies and noticed that, starting around 2000, the line starts to slide and young people are becoming less empathetic: more students were saying it’s not their problem to help people in trouble, not their job to see the world from someone else’s perspective. By 2009, on all the standard measures, Konrath found, young people on average measure 40 percent less empathetic than the previous generation. Again: could volunteer engagement help? Could exposing young people to those different from themselves help? And are corporations, governments, foundations and individual donors ready to step up and fund what’s needed to increase volunteer engagement, especially among young people?

July 16, 2019 update: US Teen and the number of suicide deaths among young people began climbing around 2008 and reached a new high in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide rates lately have been increasing in all age groups in America, in almost every state. The number of teens diagnosed with clinical depression grew 37 percent between 2005 and 2014. And suicide attempts are on the rise as well.

July 27, 2025 update: The headline proclaims Americans under 30 are so miserable that the U.S. just fell to a historic low ranking in the annual World Happiness Report. “If you were only to assess those below 30, the U.S. wouldn’t even rank in the top 60 happiest countries, the report finds.” It’s not at all a surprising finding: people are increasingly on their own, isolated from interactions with others. People are wearing headphones when and if they walk, listening to music or talking to someone, and not greeting anyone they pass, or talking to anyone when they stop. There are far less of us in face-to-face situations with other community members having any sort of shared experience, like watching a movie, attending a local sports event, participating in a pick-up basketball game, and on and on. Many students are taking classes from home rather than going into an actual classroom. And many young people aren’t volunteering, though they would like to do so, if posts to r/volunteer on Reddit are any indication; rather, they are being turned away, or are so sensitive to guidance that they feel like it’s criticism.

Also see:

Welcoming immigrants as volunteers at your organization

“Internet-mediated volunteering – the impact for Europe“, part of the ICT4EMPL Future Work project. This 2013 study on virtual volunteering in European countries includes information on volunteering as a path to employability and social inclusion, especially for young people.

Volunteering to Address Your Own Mental Health (Depression, Loneliness, Anxiety, etc.)

Deriding the monetary value of volunteer hours: my mission in life?

can volunteer engagement cultivate innovation?

Volunteer management is community engagement

hey, corporations: time to put your money where your mouth is re: nonprofits & innovation

Corporations: here’s what nonprofits really need