Introduction: The American Tradition of Association

In the fall of 1727, a dozen young men—most of them tradesmen and artisans—began meeting on Friday evenings at the Indian Head Tavern in Philadelphia. They met to debate philosophy and current events and to exchange information and resources in the name of “mutual improvement.”¹ They called themselves the “Junto Club” and were led by an ambitious, twenty-year-old printer. His name was Benjamin Franklin.

The Junto Club was part of an early response to the end of conventional, European systems of patronage and to the emergence of a dynamic commercial order driven by impersonal markets. Tradesmen increasingly turned to private institutions and to each other for mutual aid and credit.² Under Franklin’s leadership, however, the Junto Club would not only support its members. It would go on to establish many of the landmark institutions of colonial Philadelphia: the first subscription-based lending library in British North America, Pennsylvania’s first volunteer fire brigade, the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania), and the nation’s first charity hospital.³

The practices that Franklin popularized in colonial Philadelphia not only made the “City of Brotherly Love” worthy of its name. They have continued throughout the history of the United States. For more than two centuries, Americans have organized themselves voluntarily to address their common problems. Many of the most consequential social movements in the United States, from abolition to temperance to civil rights, have been outgrowths of the American instinct to associate. It is one of American society’s most striking qualities.

During his visit to the United States in 1831-2, Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the associative patterns of American society. In the first volume of Democracy in America, he observed that,

Instead of patrons, Americans sought peers. In this bottom-up, participatory form of civic action, Tocqueville found that the institutional form of association could “fix a common goal to the efforts of many men.”⁵ American associations acted in lieu of government and private industry; they provided a place for the exercise of freedom, secure against external intrusion and individuals’ atomizing tendencies and dedicated to the proposition that a whole could be greater than the sum of its parts. Above all, they instructed citizens in the art of self-government, instilling the democratic habits necessary to maintain the American republic.⁶ In sum, associations provided the space between government and markets in which Americans, and the communities they formed, could flourish.

Tocqueville, however, saw associations as not merely useful or beneficial for democracy, but essential to it. Association alone was responsible for the myriad functions of a democratic society: “[T]he progress of all the others depends on the progress of that one.”⁷

Even in our twenty-first-century American society, associational life ought to be at the center of thinking about our social order and public policy. As discussed in “The Wealth of Relations,” the Social Capital Project is focused on expanding opportunity by revitalizing families, communities, and civil society.⁸ This report is an overview paper for one of the five policy areas identified as a priority: rebuilding civil society. It lays out the nature of our diminished civil society, documents trends in its decline, and charts a path to its renewal.

Understanding Civil Society

What we today call “civil society” is a descendent of the tradition that Franklin modeled and Tocqueville observed. Indeed, many of the institutions that are conventionally thought to compose civil society resemble those very associations that were so important in early America—churches, charities, unions, fraternal organizations, and the like. The instinct to collectively address common problems has not disappeared.

In important respects, however, American civil society has evolved over the last two centuries. Its organizations have become more professionalized and its associations less participatory as administrative responsibilities have shifted from local volunteers to headquartered professionals.⁹ The result has been a change in the character of organizations. Their scope of interest often transcends local problems with the rise of international development and transnational non-governmental organizations. Membership less often entails leading a chapter meeting than merely writing a check or skimming a newsletter.¹⁰ The raison d'être for civil society may not have changed, but its institutional form has evolved from a site of proximate community into a more tenuous web of communications and transactions.

What Is Civil Society?

To appreciate fully the scope and character of these changes requires a clearer sense of what “civil society” means. It can be a difficult concept to untangle. Though but a single term, it has been imbued with several distinct meanings: some structural, some functional, and some normative.¹¹

Structurally, civil society constitutes a kind of “third sector” within society. It exists independently of both government, or the “public sector,” and the market, or “private sector.” This is not to say that the State and industry do not affect civil society. Non-profit organizations secure funding from government agencies and corporations, and they are shaped by public policy and the business cycle. Conceiving of civil society as a structurally independent third sector, however, helps to highlight these interactions with the public and private sectors and emphasize a distinct purpose of civil society: to secure public goods that the market and the State fail to provide.

Structural independence enables civil society to serve a distinct functional role as a set of “mediating institutions.” In To Empower People, Peter L. Berger and Richard John Neuhaus described civil society as comprising “those institutions standing between the individual in his private life and the large institutions of public life.”¹² Institutions—the durable social arrangements we create together to achieve common goals in the course of interacting with one another—are “instituted” for a variety of reasons. The mediating institutions “mediate” by securing for the individual a space for participation, membership, and belonging within the broader society. Where it may be impossible for an individual to directly shape, meaningfully participate in, or fully belong to mass society and its larger institutions—say, global commodities markets or the federal government—civil society provides its own institutions—schools, churches, clubs, and charities—to which one may belong and be an active participant. In this way, civil society is thought to prevent individuals’ estrangement and alienation from mass society.

In addition to this functional role, civil society also serves a normative purpose: the transmission of particular habits, values, and norms. As the bipartisan Council on Civil Society has reported, the “essential social task” of the myriad associations that compose civil society is to “foster competence and character in individuals, build social trust, and help children become good people and good citizens.”¹³ This is most obviously seen in those institutions with explicitly pedagogical purposes, such as schools and churches. Nearly all associations, however, are organized around a particular vision of the good, and their members—be they volunteers in a charity, elected leaders in a fraternal organization, or congregants in a house of worship—are bound by this shared vision. Through participation and leadership, members of civil society are habituated in observing their shared values, cooperating with their fellow men, and ultimately in practicing self-government.

Each aspect of civil society is integral to its role in society and, in particular, its role in expanding opportunity. Its structural independence as a “third sector” helps to highlight how the actions of government or the market affect its institutions. Its functional role as a set of mediating institutions underscores how it forms individuals’ relationships with the rest of society. Its normative purposes illustrate how it shapes the habits and character of entire communities.

Civil society is both integral for social health and irreplaceable by the market or the State. It comprises institutions that facilitate what we do together beyond the home. Though often formed to provide material support and mutual aid, its principal contributions to society are immaterial. As articulated in the Social Capital Project’s inaugural report, “What We Do Together,” civil society holds our common life together by supplying “extended networks of cooperation and social support, norms of reciprocity and mutual obligation, trust, and social cohesion” and by “forming our character and capacities, providing us with meaning and purpose.”¹⁴

Civil Society and Opportunity

While a vibrant civil society may be an essential part of a healthy community, it also has an important role to play in expanding economic opportunity for all Americans. Indeed, civil society has the power to transform low-income neighborhoods into opportunity-rich communities. A burgeoning social science literature has highlighted the relationship between civil society and upward mobility.¹⁵ For instance, economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues at Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights have found strong, positive correlations between local community strength and the outcomes of children, especially low-income children, in adulthood. In particular, they found that the presence of civic associations, religious institutions, and non-profit organizations—as captured in social capital indices—is closely associated with higher rates of upward mobility.¹⁶

Even as research reveals its precise effects on economic opportunity, we understand intuitively the ways in which civil society can shape the lives and outcomes of low-income Americans. Every institution is guided by a statement of purpose: to provide shelter, afterschool care, cultural enrichment, or political activism. This is the means by which the institutions of civil society promote opportunity. Though not all organizations offer services that directly boost economic prospects—such as job training or tutoring—nearly all of their services are designed to meet a need. In that way, civil society as a whole contributes to the expansion of opportunity. Because civil society thrives in places where it meets a material need, it has the largest role to play in places where material needs are greatest.

Beyond the direct provision of material aid, the institutions of civil society act both as bridges to opportunity and as sites of character formation and instruction. These two-fold roles reflect the two different forms of social capital discussed in the academic literature: bridging and bonding social capital.¹⁷

In the first sense of bridging social capital, institutions help to cultivate relationships between people who may not otherwise meet but for their common membership in an organization. Indeed, civil society—particularly its most participatory forms—serves as a locus of community life.¹⁸ It increases social relationships and interactions, even across traditional lines of social segregation. Members develop relationships with those alongside whom they worship, compete, serve, learn, and work. Such patterns of social interaction are conducive to exchanging information and building trust, the social ingredients that may open doors to new opportunities, networks, and resources.

In the second sense of bonding social capital, institutions form and shape their members. Through formal rules and expectations or through informal peer pressure, active membership cultivates pro-social and pro-opportunity norms—such as honesty and reliability, perseverance and prudence, responsibility and reciprocity—that are difficult to acquire elsewhere. It also prepares individuals for more active participation in other spheres by socializing them and building non-cognitive skills. These qualities redound to a person’s social mobility because our economy and society tend to reward such qualities. Membership in civil society is not a quick fix for opportunity, but rather a future-oriented investment that pays dividends in the long term.

If “the leading object” of the federal government, as Abraham Lincoln maintained, is “to elevate the condition of men” and “to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life,” then the health of civil society ought to be considered a priority of public policy.¹⁹ Civil society is an expansive concept, and its benefits extend beyond the confines of particular institutions, generating positive externalities for the wider community. For the purposes of public policy, however, civil society’s narrower, opportunity-building effects should not be sacrificed for the sake of such broadly shared benefits—the alleviation of material want, the security of membership, the restoration of local authority and control. Civil society may exist for all, but it is especially vital for those individuals and communities with the fewest prospects and the greatest need.

The “Hollowing Out” of Civil Society

Despite the scope of civil society, its actual force seems to have diminished. As the Social Capital Project reported in “What We Do Together,” the United States’ associational life and institutional health are in decline across a range of indicators.²⁰

Though precise causes of the decline are difficult to delineate, it is at least partially attributable to the expansion of government, which evolved to serve specific needs that civil society used to fulfill. The dynamic occurred as early as the Great Depression when New Deal policies—namely social insurance and welfare—drove down faith-based charitable activities. An estimated 30 percent of charitable spending by churches and other faith-based organizations was “crowded out” by New Deal policies.²¹ Empirical study of more recent public policy demonstrates that so-called “crowd-out” effects are a common feature of government spending and programs.²² The inverse dynamic also appears, such as increased church activity following a decrease in government expenditures.²³

Yet government alone is not responsible for displacing civil society. The dynamism and innovation of the free enterprise economy have rendered membership in associations both less necessary and less desirable. As early as the 1930s, fraternal organizations witnessed a decline in membership that was caused, in part, by the emergence of commercialized insurance. Many of the early fraternal organizations, such as the Knights of Columbus, initially formed to provide life insurance to men whose life expectancies, due to dangerous occupations and poor healthcare, were shorter. Despite their discrete, original purpose, fraternal organizations expanded their activities and mission into charity, education, and other forms of mutual aid. Once the essential function was undertaken more cheaply and efficiently by business, however, the fraternal organizations lost their initial purpose and immediate appeal to working men and women.²⁴ Mutual aid is a product of necessity; once the need is satisfied elsewhere, only interest can keep a person attached.²⁵

The crowding out of civil society by expansive government and markets is not entirely bad. It is partly a trade-off of rising American affluence that enables us to “outsource the responsibilities we used to have toward one another” as reported in “The Wealth of Relations.”²⁶ The convenience and efficiencies gained have, in many respects, contributed to Americans’ material well-being and sense of happiness; however, they have made the institutions of civil society less immediately important in American life. As sociologist Robert Nisbet observed, institutions “must seem important […] but to seem important, they must be important [emphasis in original]” —which is to say, necessary.²⁷

Such trends portend what might be called a “hollowing out” of civil society. In many cases, the physical structures that house associations—sanctuaries, lodges, meeting halls, and the like—have become literally hollow as membership declines. Meanwhile, as fewer Americans belong to civil society, we risk losing the shared norms and values supplied by it. In this sense, civil society could become figuratively hollow as well, its normative purpose losing cultural resonance. Tocqueville warned against this possibility even as he marveled at the vibrant associational life in America:

The ultimate consequence of the dynamic of crowd-out generating hollowing out was dire. Without associations, Tocqueville maintained, “civilization itself would be in peril.”²⁹

The State of Mediating Institutions

The extent to which civil society produces pro-social outcomes depends, of course, on Americans’ relation to it. The Social Capital Project envisions at least four mediating institutions that can be renewed and better used either to address problems in lieu of government or to partner with government—especially local government—in the pursuit of common policy goals: neighborhoods, churches, schools, and voluntary associations. The Project also considers philanthropy to be a critical support reflecting the health of these institutions.

This section assesses the health of civil society, using survey data to measure Americans’ levels of confidence and participation in its institutions and fundamental support system. In conjunction with relevant social science research, the data reveal how different institutions have evolved through time and how the American experience of associational life varies by demographics. As we endeavor to rebuild civil society, these findings should help us to chart a path forward.

Neighborhoods

In To Empower People, Berger and Neuhaus wrote that “[t]he neighborhood should be seen as a key mediating structure in the reordering of our national life.”³⁰ The neighborhood, as a mediating institution, involves a dimension of togetherness beyond oneself and even one’s family. It is where we associate with those one-time strangers who become, in their own way, friends. As the Project has written elsewhere, “[t]he communities to which we belong develop the civic skills and social norms that reinforce reciprocity, trust, and cooperation.”³¹

The cohesion of a neighborhood is an important indicator of a healthy associational life. Of course, not all neighborhoods are alike in this respect. The Project’s initial report highlighted the advantages that tend to accrue to residents of healthy neighborhoods as well as the disadvantages—often in the form of residential segregation wrought by a toxic mix of policy and prejudice³²—that other neighborhoods face.³³ The consequences of such underlying disparities for basic building blocks of associational life, such as trust and social interaction, reveal a troubling portrait of the American neighborhood today.

Americans are spending less time with their neighbors than they once did. From 1974 to 2018, the share of adults who reported spending an evening with a neighbor at least several times a month dropped from 44 percent to 29 percent.³⁴ In addition, since 2008, the Current Population Survey (hereafter, “CPS”) has asked about respondents’ informal interactions with neighbors, including how often they talk with their neighbors and how often they and their neighbors do favors for each other, such as watching each other’s children or lending house and garden tools. From 2008 to 2017, the share of adults who reported talking with neighbors a few times a month or more fell from 71 to 54 percent, and the share who reported doing favors for their neighbors fell from 39 to 23 percent (Figure 1).³⁵ While members of certain education and racial groups—college-educated and white adults, for example—are more likely to report having these neighborly interactions, the declines are common to members of all of them.³⁶

Though there are not comparable data further back in time, a 1948 Gallup poll suggests that neighborly interaction was once much more common.³⁷ Six in ten adults in that survey reported that they lent to or borrowed things from their neighbors. Seven in ten reported that they had them over to their house, and the same share reported that they accepted their packages or took messages for them. Nearly half reported that they did shopping for them. Four in ten reported that they looked after their children. The relatively high levels of neighborliness that we once enjoyed seem to be features of a bygone America.

Figure 1. Percent of adults who have informal interactions with neighbors a few times a month or more

^{Source: Social Capital Project analysis of CPS Civic Engagement Supplement, 2008-2011 and 2013; CPS Volunteer & Civic Life Assessment, 2017.}

The Social Capital Project’s past reports have offered reasons for the gradual disappearance of neighborly interactions. In “What We Do Together,” the Project partially attributed the decline to falling population density associated with suburbanization.³⁸ Americans have also retreated over time from public amenities and “third places,” such as the local bar, as we increasingly prefer the comfort of our own homes.³⁹ Advances in technology have encouraged social retreat as well. As the Project wrote in “The Wealth of Relations,” technological development “has allowed us to maintain relationships with far-flung friends and family as we de-prioritize getting to know our neighbors better.”⁴⁰ The rise of social media and other low-cost, in-home entertainment might also explain some of the decline in neighborly interactions over the past decade.

Moreover, we have generally come to rely on our neighbors less as our society has become more affluent and individualistic. Consider the difference between having dinner delivered and planning a dinner with neighbors. Rising affluence has given us greater independence in our everyday lives, but it may have come at a social cost for neighborhoods. Indeed, thinking about how to revitalize neighborhoods as institutions of civil society will require us to confront such trade-offs and reflect on what we value most.

In an earlier report, the Project warned that “[i]f we are connecting less with communities and people who are different than us, we could be more likely to see adversaries among those in whom we might otherwise find a neighbor.”⁴¹ There are limited survey data on the degree to which Americans trust their neighbors. The CPS shows that in 2013, 56 percent of adult respondents reported that they trust all or most of the people in their neighborhood. However, neighborhood trust levels vary by demographic group. For example, blacks and Hispanics, younger adults, and lower-income households reported less trust in their neighbors than whites, older adults, or higher-income households.⁴² Newer survey data, such as the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey on Community and Society, show similar disparities.⁴³

We can gain more purchase on the state of trust by looking at trends in “social trust”—measured in survey data as the extent to which people agree that “most people can be trusted.” While such measures are not specific to feelings about neighbors, it is likely that feelings of social trust are influenced by how trustworthy neighbors are perceived to be. These survey data show a clear correlation between social trust and self-reported happiness.⁴⁴ Research has also linked higher levels of social trust to community-wide benefits such as lower crime rates and greater entrepreneurship.⁴⁵ The benefits of social trust for individuals and communities help to explain why the Council on Civil Society argued that building social trust is an “essential social task of civil society.”⁴⁶

American civil society seems to be struggling in this regard. Social trust has eroded over the past several decades. In the 1960s, more than half of American adults agreed that “most people can be trusted,” but that share had fallen to one-third by 2018 (Figure 2).⁴⁷ The decline occurred after social trust probably increased in the decades prior to 1960.⁴⁸

Figure 2. Percent of U.S. adults who agree that “most people can be trusted”

^{Source: Social Capital Project analysis of American National Election Studies, 1964-1976 and 1992-2008; General Social Survey, 1972-2018.}

Because the General Social Survey (hereafter, “GSS”) does not contain a continuous measure of household income, educational attainment must serve as a rough proxy and illustrates that levels of social trust vary widely by class. Since 1972, Americans with at least a college degree have reported significantly higher levels of social trust than those with a high school diploma or some college education and those without a high school diploma (Figure 3).

This educational “trust gap” has also widened over time. Although social trust among higher-educated adults has fallen from its 1972 level, it has remained relatively steady since the mid-1990s at around 50 percent or higher. Meanwhile, social trust continues to decline for less-educated adults. From 1972 to 2018, the percentage of adults agreeing that “most people can be trusted” declined by more than half for adults with a high school diploma or some college education, and plummeted from 36 percent to nine percent for those without a high school diploma. Over the same period, the gap in social trust between the college-educated and high school dropouts increased from 31 percentage points to 46 percentage points, or nearly a 50 percent increase.

Figure 3. Percent of adults who agree that “most people can be trusted,” by educational attainment

^{Source: Social Capital Project analysis of General Social Survey, 1972-2018.}

One possible reason for the growing disparity in social trust along class lines could be Americans’ geographic sorting.⁴⁹ One aspect of the problem is “brain drain”: the selective migration of the highest-educated residents of some states to a relatively small number of other states.⁵⁰ Another is increasing residential segregation within metropolitan areas that leaves the well-educated increasingly clustered in relatively tight-knit, affluent neighborhoods.⁵¹ In other words, the relationship between education and trust could be tied to the social contexts in which people associate.

There also exists a disparity in social trust along racial lines.⁵² In recent years, the level of social trust among white adults (39 percent) has been more than twice as high as that among black adults (17 percent) and Hispanic adults (16 percent).⁵³ These differences are not altogether surprising given America’s history of race relations.

The future of civil society seems all the more harrowing in light of our weakened neighborhood ties. The informal networks of support and socialization among households were once a mainstay of American life, their value perhaps only appreciated now in their virtual absence in some places. The proximity of local and state governments, however, may point to a promising avenue for reform. Where trust between individuals is low, local solutions could build more cohesive and vibrant neighborhoods. In some places, that may mean lifting or reforming barriers to development, such as zoning codes, or private activity, such as licensing and registration laws. In others, it may mean directly partnering with neighborhoods to address a common problem as modeled by community policing policies. Regardless of the specific solution, the importance ought to be clear: if we cannot trust or help our neighbors, can we reasonably expect to enjoy fully our associational life?

Churches are perhaps America’s most prominent and active mediating institutions. Tocqueville described Americans’ religion as “the first of their political institutions.”⁵⁵ Compared to the rest of the Western world, America continues to be defined and shaped by a relatively robust religious life.⁵⁶ Americans who frequently attend religious services tend to be happier, healthier, and better spouses and parents and are more likely to engage in pro-social and community-building activities.⁵⁷ They also exhibit higher levels of volunteering, charitable giving, and participation in voluntary organizations than Americans who are less religiously involved.⁵⁸

While much of the research suggests only correlation between active religiosity and positive outcomes, other work has suggested a causal relationship. For example, one study using GSS data finds that living in an area where more people share a particular faith leads to higher levels of religious participation as well as better economic and family outcomes.⁵⁹ The benefits of church membership appear to redound not only to attendees but to the larger community. For example, one study found a “halo effect” by which historic sacred places on average generate roughly $1.7 million for their local economies and estimated that 87 percent of the beneficiaries of such places’ community programs were not themselves parishioners.⁶⁰

Nevertheless, attachment to religious institutions has eroded over time. From 1972 to 2018, the share of adults who reported attending religious services once a month or more dropped from 57 to 42 percent (Figure 4). Over the same period, the share of adults who reported never having attended religious services tripled. If present trends continue, the share of never-attenders will overtake the share of frequent-attenders by 2032.⁶¹

These findings do not necessarily suggest that the most actively religious Americans are becoming detached from religious institutions. Rather, the decline in religious attendance has been concentrated among those with only a nominal attachment to organized religion.⁶² GSS and Gallup data suggest that regular, weekly attendance has not changed significantly since the early 1970s, especially among Catholics and mainline Protestants. In fact, frequent attendance has increased among evangelicals.⁶³ In 2018, however, the share of Americans adults saying they have no religion surpassed both the share of evangelicals and the share of Catholics for the first time.⁶⁴

Growing irreligiosity and deinstitutionalization have affected virtually all demographic groups. In 2014, the Pew Research Center found that

Still, certain groups report greater attachment to religious institutions. For example, monthly religious attendance among blacks (59 percent) and Hispanics (50 percent) has been higher than that of whites (40 percent) in recent years.⁶⁶ Historically, religious institutions have played a vital role in the black community especially. Black churches served as hubs for volunteering and fundraising during the civil rights movement; indeed, the movement was infused with the language and traditions of black Christianity. ⁶⁷ Black Protestants are also more likely than evangelicals or mainline Protestants to be involved in their churches beyond mere attendance—whether that be through participation in small groups or service in formal leadership or volunteer roles.⁶⁸

In American Grace, Robert Putnam and David Campbell observe that, unlike white adults, black and Hispanic adults exhibit a strong relationship between their ethnic identity and religiosity, which tends to mute any effect on religiosity by education or class.⁶⁹ Likewise, sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox and his colleagues note that

Among white adults, however, there is substantial variation in religious attendance by educational attainment. Differences in the shares of white adults who say they never attend religious services demonstrate this most clearly (Figure 5). Among whites in 1972, the gap between the college-educated and high school dropouts who never attended religious services was only three percentage points. By 2018, the gap was nearly 20 percentage points—more than a six-fold increase. Growing religious deinstitutionalization among less-educated whites bodes poorly for their sense of belonging.

Schools

For many towns and neighborhoods in America, schools serve as the loci of community life. They often provide the physical places, or “social infrastructure,” where people vote, hold community gatherings, or convene for sporting events.⁷⁸ In particular, schools that provide social services and other goods beyond the classroom are rightly thought of as “community hubs.”⁷⁹

School-related activities facilitate civic engagement and volunteerism that benefit an entire community. Regular school-based community service can improve students’ civic skills,⁸⁰ and membership in school-based organizations can increase political participation in adulthood.⁸¹ In addition, one study has shown that higher levels of, or increases in, “school social capital”—defined as a sense of belonging, comfort, and happiness in one’s school—positively predict civic involvement in adulthood.⁸²

Parents also experience civic benefits through involvement in their children’s schools. In Bowling Alone, Putnam documented how parent volunteers in the U.S. kindergarten movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created “an array of new forms of adult connectedness [around the kindergartens]—mothers’ clubs, sewing clubs, and so on.”⁸³ He described how a hypothetical couple starting a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) chapter at their child’s school can build civic skills and create social ties:

Schools with more involved parents tend to have higher school quality, and children there generally have better educational and social outcomes.⁸⁵ Catholic schools, in particular, perform better precisely because of the embedded parental networks, rather than teacher or student characteristics.⁸⁶ Some researchers have suggested that Catholic school closures help to explain why social trust has fallen and crime rates risen in some inner-city communities.⁸⁷ Half of all Catholic schools in America have shuttered since 1960.⁸⁸

However, there is reason for optimism. The National Center for Education Statistics has fielded the Parent and Family Involvement in Education (PFI) Survey since the 1990s.⁸⁹ The survey data—nationally representative of K-12 students and their parents—show that parents and guardians have become more actively involved in the life of schools over the last two decades (Figure 6).⁹⁰ Though parental involvement in some activities has only modestly increased from 1996 to 2016, the findings are still notable because they reflect greater, not less, participation in schools.

Figure 6. Percent of parents or guardians reporting participation in select school activities

^{Source: Social Capital Project analysis of Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey, 1996 and 2016.}

Though participation generally has risen over time across all subgroups, there remains considerable variation between subgroups. Parents of children who attend private schools are more involved than those whose children attend public schools; married parents are more involved than unmarried parents; parents of white children are more involved than parents of black or Hispanic children; and college-educated parents are generally more involved than less-educated parents. It may be the case that many parents wish to participate more in their children’s schools but cannot because of inflexible work schedules, demanding time constraints, or other work and family circumstances.⁹¹

Nevertheless, for parents and their children, schools are increasingly becoming institutions around which associational life is based. Considering the negative trends in other institutions of civil society, the positive trends in parental involvement are cause for at least some optimism. Enabling more parents to be involved in their children’s schools and supporting schools in their many social roles could be ways of strengthening schools’ place in civil society. For example, policies giving parents more workplace flexibility could allow greater participation in school functions, while local programs supporting extracurricular activities could bolster schools’ function as centers of community life.

National chapter-based veterans’ organizations, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), have waned significantly over the past few decades. For these organizations, the number of posts and members in their local chapters have dropped precipitously since the early 1990s.⁹⁷ As fraternal organizations’ material functions have become less necessary and individualized alternatives to associational life—often involving technology—have proliferated, their social importance in Americans’ daily lives has diminished.

Over time, membership levels have come to be associated with class.⁹⁸ Highly educated adults are most likely to report membership in voluntary associations, while membership has eroded among the least educated (Figure 8). A Public Religion Research Institute survey from 2016 found that working-class whites were less involved in voluntary associations than their college-educated peers.⁹⁹

^{Source: Social Capital Project analysis of General Social Survey, 1974 and 2004.}

Membership declines are also reflected in falling levels of active participation in voluntary associations. In Bowling Alone, Putnam documented several declines in measures of participation through the late 1990s.¹⁰⁰ For example, he found a 50 percent decline in the share of adults who served as an officer or committee member for a local club or organization from 1973 to 1994. From the mid-1970s to 1999, the number of club meetings the average American attended each year fell from twelve to five, and the share of adults who attended at least one club meeting in the previous year fell from 64 percent to 38 percent.¹⁰¹

Recent data suggest that these trends have either remained constant since the 1990s or worsened. The Civic Engagement Supplement to the CPS indicates that Americans were slightly more likely between 2008 and 2013 to serve as officers or be on a committee than in 1994, but that was less likely than in the 1970s or early 1980s.¹⁰² Furthermore, just 24 percent of adults in 2008 reported attending a meeting of any group or organization in the previous year.¹⁰³ This suggests that, from the late 1990s to late 2000s, the share of American adults who never attended club meetings rose even further—from two-thirds to three-fourths.

As noted above, some reasons for the declines in group membership and participation include crowding out by government programs or commercialized products and services, professionalization of large organizations, and rising individualism. We can see evidence of individualism even in the ways in which people engage. As Putnam notes, “cooperative forms of behavior, like serving on committees, have declined more rapidly than ‘expressive’ forms of behavior, like writing letters.”¹⁰⁴ For his part, Putnam attributed the decline in civic engagement to work-life pressures, suburban sprawl, electronic entertainment, and generational change.¹⁰⁵

The trend of voluntary associations fading from civil society should worry those who appreciate the inherent value of membership in such social-capital-building entities. Given the variety of causes for this decline, strengthening our voluntary associations, especially among the less-educated, will require a variety of solutions. Policies that reverse crowd-out could ensure that government is at least doing no further harm to these institutions. Other policies that prioritize local ties and expertise, or that encourage participation in voluntary associations, might also help to renew these mainstays of American associational life.