PROSOCIAL Virtual Seminar September 2026 

To register for the PROSOCIAL Virtual seminar on September 8th, 2026, at 2:30 PM (CEST) please fill out the form below. You will receive an email that contains the link for joining the seminar.

Title of the presentation: The Income - Generosity Gradient in Europe and Over Time

Speaker: René Bekkers (VU Amsterdam) 

Abstract: How does generosity vary with income? While higher income is associated with higher amounts donated to charitable causes, those with lower income tend to spend a higher proportion of their limited financial means on charity. The “Generating Generosity” project analyzes the proportion of income donated to charity as a measure of generosity. In the seminar, I report on two observational studies of generosity from the project: a comparative international study on the income-generosity gradient in 9 countries in Europe, and a longitudinal study on the development of the income-generosity gradient over time in the Netherlands. 

In the comparative study among 13,500 respondents in the NEWCOMERS survey, we find that the income-generosity gradient is negative in 9 countries in Europe, not only in self-reported donations throughout the calendar year, but also in behavioral experiments. Generosity as a proportion of income is lower in higher income countries, particularly in the experiments. Among 5,200 households in the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey tracked between 2002 and 2023, we also find that households with a higher income donate a smaller proportion of income to charity. Yet we find that changes in income within households are not reliably associated with changes in generosity. Taken together, the findings indicate that the negative income - generosity gradient is a common pattern in Europe, but likely not due to a negative effect of income on generosity. I conclude with a discussion of interventions that may increase generosity.

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