Social Expectations for Charitable Giving in China

The rapid rise of philanthropy in China has motivated extensive research on why people make charitable donations as a personal decision, but few studies have explored the social dimension of these decisions. We propose that the legacy of government welfare provision and the culture of trust have led...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly Vol. 52; no. 3; pp. 817 - 837
Main Authors Nie, Lin, Chan, Kwan Nok, Lam, Wai-Fung
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2023
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Central government
Charities
Donations
Expectations
Government employees
Local government
Philanthropy
Welfare
trust
charitable giving
social expectation
government ties
philanthropy
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Summary:The rapid rise of philanthropy in China has motivated extensive research on why people make charitable donations as a personal decision, but few studies have explored the social dimension of these decisions. We propose that the legacy of government welfare provision and the culture of trust have led Chinese citizens to form different expectations for others in philanthropic situations. Our survey results point to some interesting asymmetries: Generalized trust and institutional trust toward local governments inflate people’s expectation for philanthropic contributions from others, whereas particularized trust and trust toward the central government reduce it. Also, Chinese citizens expect government employees to make larger contributions, but they don’t expect charities with government backing to receive correspondingly larger donations. We conclude with some observations on how the unique pattern of social expectation may shape the future of Chinese philanthropy.
ISSN:0899-7640
1552-7395
0899-7640
DOI:10.1177/08997640221100721