Charity begins at home : How socialization experiences influence giving and volunteering

This paper shows that charity begins at home. Using retrospective reports on youth experiences from the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey (n=1,964, 2001) I find that (1) parents who volunteer when their children are young promote giving and volunteering of their children once they have become adults; (2) the intensity of youth participation in nonprofit organizations is positively related to current giving and volunteering; (3) that parental volunteering and youth participation promote current volunteering because volunteering enhances human and social capital and makes people accessible for mobilization networks; (4) that parental volunteering and youth participation promote charitable giving mainly because they promote prosocial values and build social capital.