Membership of Individuals in Voluntary Organizations in India: An Analysis of Socio-Economic Features

Voluntary organisations play an important role in the development process as it promotes need based, area specific, innovative, integrated, environmental friendly and people friendly interventions. Membership in voluntary associations may be a source of solidarity and social integration. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to analyse socio-economic features of individuals who are active members of voluntary organizations in India. It is found in the analysis of data that married and living together as married persons, Hindu individuals, male respondents, individuals in the age group of 31 years to 60 years reported the maximum number of memberships in voluntary organizations. It is also observed that as the level of education and the level of income rises, the membership in voluntary organizations also rise.