NCoC: Does Demography Explain the Civic Gap?

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Does Demography Explain the Civic Gap?

Tale of Two Cities: Civic Health in Miami and Minneapolis-St. Paul

January 24, 2011

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“A Tale of Two Cities” Civic Health IndexClick to Download PDF Document

Given the enormous differences in the demographics—income, race and ethnicity, age, country of origin, immigration history, and education—between the Twin Cities and Miami, it would be reasonable to expect that demographic differences explain the gaps in civic engagement. Indeed, previous research by NCoC and many others has found that people are more likely to engage in the ways measured by the CPS if they have higher incomes and more education, if they are native-born rather than immigrants, if they are white or African American rather than Latino, and if they are older.13

We have analyzed the relationship between such demographic variables and civic engagement in the two metropolitan areas featured in this report. Details are presented in the Appendix. To summarize the results: demographics do correlate with civic engagement in the expected ways in these two cities, but demographic differences between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Miami do not come close to explaining the civic engagement gap between those two areas. Some illustrative facts support that case:

• Across virtually all of the civic engagement indicators (the exceptions were attending to public affairs, donating to charity, and voting) an individual with a high school education in Minneapolis-St. Paul was about as likely to be engaged as an individual with a college education in Miami.

• Across all income levels, individuals in Minneapolis-St. Paul were more likely to report having participated in civic engagement activities than in Miami. Indeed, for ﬁve of the items (volunteering, attending public meetings, working with neighbors, non-electoral participation, and group participation), individuals in Minneapolis-St. Paul in the lowest income group were more likely to report having engaged in the activity than individuals in Miami in the highest income group.

• Native-born citizens in Miami were less likely to report participating in each civic activity (except for attending to public affairs) than native-born citizens in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

• In Minneapolis-St.Paul, older people were considerably more likely to engage in civic acts than young adults. In Miami, for some of the civic activities (such as volunteering) there was virtually no evidence of growth over the life course.

• In both cities, non-Hispanic whites generally had higher levels of civic engagement than minority groups. However, non-Hispanic whites in Miami were less civically engaged than non-Hispanic whites in Minneapolis-St. Paul (the one exception being attending to public affairs).

These ﬁndings and others presented in the Appendix suggest that something beyond demographic differences must underlie the gap in civic engagement between the two metropolitan areas.

Civic Engagement in Miami and Minneapolis-St. Paul (Table) • Does the Performance of Institutions Explain the Civic Gap?

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