The Charities Aid Foundation has come out with a report called the World Giving Report. It is one of the largest projects covering 95% of the world’s population in 153 countries and is based on an ongoing survey by Gallup and studies how charitable behaviour differs in each country. To ensure that the wealthiest nations do not appear most charitable it combines measures of giving of money and time. Understanding the level of giving in a country is most important since – “The level of giving in a country indicates something about the strength of civil society – the extent to which individuals are willing and able to contribute towards addressing the needs of others both in their own localities and across borders.”

Individuals were asked which of the following three charitable acts of giving they had undertaken in the last month:

• donated money to an organisation?
• volunteered time to an organisation?
• helped a stranger, or someone they didn’t know who needed help?

• 30% had donated money
• 20% had volunteered time
• 45% had helped a stranger in some form or the other

While the rest of the world showed a marked ability to give with age, in Southern Asia, giving seems to peak in the 35-49 age group. This suggests that people are more likely to give at the peak of their careers rather than when they are retiring as they save up for their old age in countries which lack sufficient social welfare measures. However volunteering time peaked in the >=50 age group as they would tend to have more time in retirement. But quite interesting helping a stranger was most prevalent once again in the 35-49 age group.
Again while its fairly normal that most of the money will be donated by males as opposed to females in largely patriarchal societies of South Asia, what was very interesting was that males scored over females in the volunteering time as well as helping strangers.