Give and Take or Give and Give: Charitable Giving in Migrant Households

We investigate how households from migrant communities in Australia deal with conflicting claims on their resources for charitable giving in various forms, using household survey data. We examine financial donations, volunteering and remittances among the competing claims on migrants' resources and the effect of secular consumption on giving. We control for the wide range of religious denominations and the metropolitan and regional locations represented in our sample. We find increases in income lead to more financial donations and remittances. Contemporaneous increases in secular spending appear to be associated with reductions in giving except in the case of remittances. It is suggested that the investment and altruism motives associated with remittances could make it rather more resilient to competing pressures. Overseas donations are more susceptible to secular expenditure than donations in the host country; the latter may be more susceptible to community pressures. Indeed, we find evidence of members of home country community groups in the host country giving more to all claimants. These households may face particular conflicts in meeting all claims on their resources as prior evidence has suggested. Time donations to social organizations are particularly susceptible to discretionary spending, which could impact on integration into the wider community.