CGAP Briefing Note 7 - How generous is the UK - Charitable giving in the context of household spending
How generous is the UK? This briefing note considers relative levels of generosity in the UK by looking at the connection between household budgets and donations to charity.
How generous is the UK? Based on data for 214,670 households pooled from 31 years of the national Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF), this briefing note considers relative levels of generosity in the UK by looking at the connection between household budgets and donations to charity. Generosity is defined as a household's likelihood of donating, combined with donations as a proportion of its budget. The key findings are:
- a household's propensity to donate increases with its other spending;
- more households at the top end of the expenditure distribution donated to charity in recent years than did in the late 1970s/early 1980s;
- their share of total donations also rose significantly, meaning that charities became more reliant on fewer, better‑off households for their donations;
- this reflects a general trend towards a more unequal distribution of household expenditure;
- among households that donate, households on lower budgets give more as a percentage of their spending than do households on large budgets.
The full briefing note is available for download at the link below.
