Do Race, Ethnicity, Citizenship and Socio-economic Status Determine Civic-Engagement? CIRCLE Working Paper #62

This paper provides descriptive data on differences in civic engagement between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Because there is not always consensus on what measure best describes disadvantaged, this paper used multiple indicators (race, ethnicity, citizenship status, family income and educational attainment) across four measures of civic engagement: (1) Percentage of survey respondents who volunteer with a formal non-profit provides measure of formal volunteer rate by group; (2) Percentage of survey respondents who do not volunteer but attend community meetings or work on community problems indicates whether disadvantaged groups exhibit a preference for community-oriented work over what is generally accepted as volunteering with a formal organization; (3) Percentage of individuals who both volunteer and either attend community meetings or work to fix a problem in their neighborhoods to provide better understanding about how volunteers from some groups are also highly engaged community actors; and (4) Percentage of all respondents, volunteer and non-volunteer, who attend community meetings or work on community problems to provide another view of group differences in civic engagement. Using the 2005-2007 Current Population Survey's Annual Volunteer Supplement was used for source data, major findings include: (1) Family income and education predict both likelihood of civic engagement and the rates of attrition; (2) Higher levels of income and education predict higher civic participation and attrition rates; (3) Whites tend to have higher rates of civic engagement and lower attrition rates than blacks, Hispanics or Asians; similarly, native-born citizens have higher rates of civic engagement and lower attrition than immigrants; and (4) Findings for race, ethnicity and citizenship status hold even when family income and educational attainment are considered. A Technical Appendix includes description of the logistic regression used for this analysis. (Contains 4 footnotes, 2 figures and 7 tables.)