Analyzing competitive relationships between volunteer activities based on niche theory

This study aims to analyze the competitive relationships between different types of volunteering. Within society, most organizations and programs conflict and compete over limited resources. From this perspective, the analysis treats volunteers as resources and types of volunteering as competing entities. The relationships of competition between entities were analyzed using niche theory, and the data were derived from the 2022 Urban Policy Indicator Survey on volunteer outcomes. The results of niche breadth showed that volunteering for the socially disadvantaged had the largest niche breadth, indicating generality across various age groups. In contrast, volunteering related to child education primarily involved participants in their 30s and 40s and showed a relatively smaller niche breadth. Niche overlap, indicating competition between types, was highest between services for the socially disadvantaged and disaster relief. In terms of niche superiority, environmental protection activities showed a higher advantage over other types, whereas child education volunteering showed the lowest. Based on these results, this study proposes the development of pre-linkage volunteer activity programs to strengthen connections between different types of volunteering.