NCoC: Public Service Does Not Seem to be a Common Career Motivation

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Public Service Does Not Seem to be a Common Career Motivation

Strategies for Civic Renewal

August 27, 2009

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In the 2009 America’s Civic Health Index, we asked people about their interest in serving the public through their work. As might be expected, “public benefit” did not emerge as a major motivator for most people—only 6% chose it as their top motivation.

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America’s Civic Health Index 2009: Civic Health in Hard TimesClick to Download PDF Document

Another way to encourage civic engagement is to make it an aspect of work life, rather than reserving it for after- work and after-school time. Society needs teachers, police officers, soldiers, citizen-engineers, citizen-physicians, and citizen-entrepreneurs as well as volunteers, voters, and donors. With more than one-third of the federal workforce retiring over the next five years, many in mission-critical positions, public service also means attracting the best and brightest to serve in the federal government.

In the 2009 America’s Civic Health Index, we asked people about their interest in serving the public through their work. As might be expected, “public benefit” did not emerge as a major motivator for most people—only 6% chose it as their top motivation. (There may, however, be other lines of questioning that could better uncover people’s desire to make a difference in the world through meaningful work.) The relatively low priority for public benefit of one career may also reflect the current economic hardship: for many, working in the public and nonprofit sectors may simply be unaffordable because of relatively low wage and a lack of job security due to high risk of lay-offs in the public sector.

When asked about the least important factor, the same pattern emerged. Status and prestige were least important, followed by commuting issues and then the “public benefit” of the work. There were very small generational differences. Millennials (who have the most choice of careers because they are young), chose “public benefit” at a 6.5% rate.

The people who chose the “public benefit” (213 respondents) were more likely to have BAs or higher degrees, to attend religious services almost weekly or more, to volunteer, to donate money and food, and to have increased their time on volunteering; but they were also more likely to be in the lower income brackets (less than $50,000).

Belief in the value of working for a secular nonprofit rose with income, and belief in the public value of government careers fell with income.

Another way of investigating the intersection of civic engagement and career choices is to ask people what kind of work they would consider most publicly beneficial. We asked what kind of job would “allow you to do the most good for the community or country”? There was certainly no consensus; answers were divided fairly evenly across the options we offered. The top choice was working for a socially responsible corporation, although local and state jobs plus federal government jobs drew a combined 23%.

Millennials were more positive than other generations about careers in the federal government, with 15% picking these jobs as most beneficial. People are nearly three times as likely to feel they are doing the most good by working for a socially responsible corporation (19%) versus a Fortune 500 company (7%). This implies that major corporations could tout their social responsibility over their financial bottom line as a means of recruitment.

Providing Incentives to Become More Involved • Policy Changes for Civic Engagement

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