Given this definition, measuring volunteering activity is likely to be a tricky business. Would you know how many hours you had spent over the past year helping your neighbours? Those London commuters might know – a roundish number? – but the rest of the UK population is unlikely to keep score. Household surveys can help. In the UK, the Community Life Survey and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) ask respondents about the nature and scale of their volunteering activities. Although far from perfect, they enable us to build up a good overall picture of the volunteering sector. And what a picture they paint. First, the volunteer army in the UK is huge. Figure 4 illustrates the extent of participation in voluntary activities in 2012, based on the Community Life Survey. Around 44% of respondents had done some form of formal voluntary work over the previous 12 months and 29% volunteer formally at least once a month. This means around 15 million people in the UK volunteer “frequently”. Looking at hours worked, this equates to just over 2 billion hours per year spent formally volunteering. To give you some context, that is just under one hour per week for every person over 16 in the UK. It is 5% of the total hours worked in the UK by paid employees. It is equivalent to 1.25 million full-time equivalents (FTEs), or double the number of paid FTEs in the voluntary sector.
If randomly selected individuals are made happier – for example, by having their TVs removed on a Saturday evening – they are approximately 12% more productive. Since we know volunteering has a significant impact on an individual’s well-being, it is a short step to think it is also productivity-enhancing. 17  This figure is calculated as the estimated impact on well-being from volunteering £ x the number of volunteers in the UK (15m) = £  18  Casiday et al (2008). 19  For further details see http://neweconomymanchester.com/stories/832-unit_cost_database  20  For further details see Volunteering England: http://www.volunteering.org.uk/who-we-can-help/employers/thebusiness-case-for-esv  21  Estrada et al (1997), Wright and Staw (1999), Diener et al (2005). 8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  That, too, is consistent with PBE’s experience. Employers of the economists used by PBE as volunteers have often given fed back that this has enhanced their motivation and skills. And it is worth just putting in context how big a potential benefit that could be. If the UK’s 15 million volunteers were each 5% more productive, that would deliver a boost to national income of £ billion each year. 22 Once you tot up the private benefits of volunteering – well-being, health, skills – something quite striking becomes apparent. The benefits to volunteering might be as large, if not larger, for volunteers themselves as for recipients. In other words, in giving we really do receive – possibly as much as we give!