Thomas Rotolo

Trends in Voluntary Association Participation

Researchers have claimed that trends in voluntary association participation provide the starting point for examinations of social capital—a reflection of the quality of social ties at the individual or community level of analysis. This research addresses the link between participation in voluntary associations and social capital by examining trends in U.S. participation levels over a 21-year period. Using data from the General Social Survey (1974-1994), the findings demonstrate that, although aggregate voluntary association participation decreased between 1974 and 1984, participation increased in the later half of the time period. Further analyses disaggregating participation by the type of voluntary association demonstrate that participation in all but four types of association either increased or remained stable over the period. The article concludes with implications for future research exploring the relationship between voluntary association participation and social capital.

EMPLOYMENT SECTOR AND VOLUNTEERING: The Contribution of Nonprofit and Public Sector Workers to the Volunteer Labor Force

In capitalist societies, jobs are sorted not only by occupational status, but also by the employment sector in which they are situated. Research has demonstrated that public- and nonprofit-sector workers have more prosocial values than private-sector workers. We used recent data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Special Supplement on Volunteering to examine sector differences in the likelihood of doing volunteer work and the number of hours volunteered. Regardless of occupation or education, nonprofit-sector employees are the most likely to volunteer and with the most hours, followed by public-sector workers and the self-employed. This finding is robust across most types of volunteer work.

COMPETITION AND COMMITMENT IN VOLUNTARY MEMBERSHIPS: The Paradox of Persistence and Participation

Much of the research on voluntary associations has argued that commitment to the group determines member participation and persistence. In this framework, highly committed members participate to a greater degree than less committed members, and maintain their connection with the group over longer periods of time. Less committed members, on the other hand, participate sporadically, and tend to drop their memberships easily. This commitment thesis implies a positive relationship between participation and persistence: the more the member participates, the longer the duration of membership. We argue that this individual level thesis should be supplanted by a system level understanding, in which the competition among social groups for individual resources determines persistence and participation. This competition thesis predicts a negative relationship between persistence of membership and participation in group activities: the more the member participates, the shorter the average duration of membership. We use event history analysis to test these opposing hypotheses on a sample of 1587 membership spells covering a fifteen year time period. We find strong and consistent support for the competition thesis.

SEX SEGREGATION IN VOLUNTEER WORK

Sex segregation in the workplace—the tendency for men and women to work in different occupations and jobs—remains widespread. Domestic chores are also sex-typed, but the extent to which sex segregation is found in other forms of nonwaged work, such as volunteering, is unknown. One theory about the work/nonwork interface predicts a positive relation between the two types of activity: sex segregation will be just as common in unpaid labor. Another theory predicts a negative relation: waged work and nonpaid work are dissimilar. Maximum likelihood probit models with selection are used to estimate the incidence of sex segregation among volunteers in a nationally representative sample of adult Americans (N = 91,807). Men are more likely to occupy leadership positions than women. They are more likely to do maintenance work and teach or coach, while women are more likely to prepare and serve food or clothing, raise money, and “help out” at events. Sex segregation is most pronounced among those who volunteer to help young people, but negligible among volunteers advocating a cause.

Town Heterogeneity and Affiliation: A Multilevel Analysis of Voluntary Association Membership:

This article develops and tests a general hypothesis derived from a theoretical perspective that links the individual-level outcome of voluntary association membership to the aggregate-level feature of town heterogeneity. The hypothesis predicts that heterogeneity will be negatively related to membership because, ceteris paribus, the potential for homophilous social network ties decreases with heterogeneity. The research examines heterogeneity with respect to four sociodemographic variables: education, income, industry, and race. To correctly separate individual effects from structural effects, nonlinear hierarchical models are employed. The results from models separately including each type of heterogeneity provide support for the hypothesis. Estimates from a model including all four types of heterogeneity suggest that race heterogeneity has the strongest impact on affiliation, although the effect of education heterogeneity also remains. The article concludes with a discussion of how future research on voluntary associations might further consider heterogeneity, with special emphasis on race heterogeneity.

State-Level Differences in Volunteerism in the United States: Research Based on Demographic, Institutional, and Cultural Macrolevel Theories

The volunteer rate in the United States varies from a high of 44% in Utah to a low of 18% in a bordering state, Nevada. Hierarchical nonlinear modeling techniques are used to test various theories such as demographic, institutional and cultural theory to explain general, religious, and secular volunteering with a nationally representative sample of nearly 300,000 respondents in 50 states. Household composition, race heterogeneity, and the density of nonprofit organizations influence the general volunteering rate. Religious volunteering is influenced by household composition, race heterogeneity, the density of religious congregations, and the religiosity of the residents of the state. The secular volunteer rate is influenced by household composition, race heterogeneity, and the density of nonprofit organizations.

The Effects of Children and Employment Status on the Volunteer Work of American Women

Competing demands from work and family make it difficult for women to do volunteer work. An analysis of data from the Young Womens Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey (1978-1991) shows that homemakers are more likely to volunteer than are full-time workers, followed by part-time workers. Mothers of school-age children are the most likely to volunteer, followed by childless women and mothers of young children. Mothers of school-age children are even more likely to volunteer if they are homemakers, and mothers of pre-school children are even less likely to volunteer if they work full-time.

The System of Occupations: Modeling Occupations in Sociodemographic Space

What accounts for changes in the social composition of occupations over time? We address this question by adapting an ecological theory of competition from McPherson (1983). This theory suggests that occupations compete for members in a niche space defined by the social composition of an occupations members. As one occupation successfully acquires and retains new people with different sociodemographic characteristics, other occupations experience shifts in their sociodemographic composition. Using the Current Population Survey Annual Demographic Files (1972-82), we test dynamic hypotheses about changes in the age and education composition of occupations. The data strongly support the theory. We then ask whether the same dynamics apply to the professions and occupations. The data suggest that professional closure limits the movement of professions in the education dimension.

Work Histories and Voluntary Association Memberships

We explore the impact of work histories on voluntary association memberships. Stable work histories are associated with more membership months over a 15-year period, in contrast to a “disorderly” sequence of jobs, which results in fewer membership months. Mens work histories affect only their job-related memberships; womens work histories affect a wider range. These results suggest that current trends in the restructuring of work toward more contingent employment will decrease rates of civic participation.

Patterns and Correlates of Substance Use among American Indians in Washington State

While there is fairly extensive literature examining the patterns and correlates of substance use across minority youth populations with a particular focus on comparisons between Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, there has been comparatively little attention devoted to adults. Drawing on data derived from a household sample of close to 7,000 adults in Washington State, this paper provides multivariate analyses of the correlates of substance use across five racial/ethnic groups with a specific emphasis on American Indians. The analyses reveal that while American Indians have generally higher levels of substance use and abuse than those from other racial/ethnic groups, the differences are attenuated when socio-demographic and individual level/risk protective factors are taken into account.