Does higher social diversity lower people's contributions to public goods? The case of volunteering in New Zealand

Thornton, Samuel; Clark, Jeremy

doi:10.1080/00779951003614065

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The closest New Zealand-based work of which we are aware is Thornton and Clark (2010), which looks at whether social diversity affects New Zealanders' likelihood of volunteering time to public goods in general. Internationally, however, there has been a rapidly expanding literature on the effects of heterogeneity on various "social capital" indicators, particularly in the United States, and particularly regarding the effects of heterogeneity by ethnicity or race.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does higher social diversity affect people's contributions to local schools? Evidence from New Zealand

Armstrong

Clark

2013

New Zealand Economic Papers

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New Zealand is becoming more socially diverse, in common with other Western countries.Primarily U.S. based-evidence suggests that growing diversity may lower people's participation in society, and their contributions towards public goods. We test whether there is evidence of a similar relationship in New Zealand, specifically between social diversity and voluntary contributions towards local schools. We use data from the New Zealand Ministry of Education and the Census for the years 2001 and 2006 to estimate whether social heterogeneity affects a school's ability to raise funds locally. Individual school revenue data is matched with measures of the heterogeneity of the neighbourhood in which the school is located. We consider heterogeneity by language, ethnicity, religion and income. After running cross-section and fixed effects regressions which control for other factors, we find only limited evidence that diversity affects the financial support schools receive from their local communities. We do find that higher nominal household income inequality lowers the revenues schools collect from fundraising, but not the revenues they receive from parental contributions or donations.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does higher social diversity affect people's contributions to local schools? Evidence from New Zealand

Armstrong

Clark

2013

New Zealand Economic Papers

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“…Putnam's observation that Americans join, trust and vote less than 10 years ago is also applicable to New Zealand (Putnam, 2000) -today in New Zealand young people exhibit lower social trust, less community involvement, and connection to their community than older cohorts (Thornton and Clark, 2010). The lack of community felt by young people in particular is disconcerting, for the benefits of being involved are well recorded in suicide research, as outlined in sections 1 -9 (Beautrais, 2003d, Joiner et al, 1997.…”

Section: Trust and Social Capitalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Youth Suicide, Subjective Well-Being and the Role of Place in New Zealand

Snider¹

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<p>One of the major shifts in our social structure over the last 50 years has been a switch in the relative well-being positions of young and old. This is reflected in their suicide rates where, in contrast to the gradual decline in the propensity of older populations to take their own lives, that of the young has risen dramatically. Not confined to New Zealand, this ‘generational switch’ raises important questions about the changing relative distribution of incentives and rewards for living across the age domain. The purpose of my thesis is to document this change and explore its implications. I do so by analysing the current distribution of subjective well-being across contemporary age groups including differences between men and women and Māori and non-Māori. Of particular interest is the link between suicide, subjective well-being and social capital – the levels of social connectedness that prevail in the lives of the young adults relative to their parents’ generation. As a geographer I’m particularly concerned with the role of local capital (community connectedness and trust) in nurturing well-being, and hence the variation that well-being exhibits across places within a country. While thoroughly investigated between nations, relatively few studies document geographical variations in subjective well-being within countries, particularly in terms of how these statistics differ by age. I find that not only does dissatisfaction with life (unhappiness and other measures of subjective well-being) rise as teenagers approach adulthood, but that it peaks in the 30s and declines slowly thereafter in a pattern reflective of the prevailing pattern of suicide. Moreover I find that, in addition to partnership, income, employment status and housing tenure, satisfaction with life among young adults in particular also varies across local communities, and cities. As such, the young exhibit a heightened sensitivity to place in ways that raise important questions about the nature of communities in which children are raised. It is this new information which I bring to a discussion of current initiatives dealing with mental health and the prevailing strategies advocated in New Zealand.</p>

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Social capital, social heterogeneity, and electoral turnout

Clark,

François,

Gergaud

2024

Kyklos

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Among the many studied determinants of voting, we predict that i) increased social capital will be positively associated with turnout, while increased heterogeneity will be negatively associated; ii) both factors will work through their influence on the costs of information gathering and on the social norms of voting; and iii) that heterogeneity will interact with social capital in its association with turnout. We test these predictions at the extremely fine “meshblock” level by regressing New Zealand voter turnout in its 2017 national election on its 2013 census characteristics. We use roughly 40,000 meshblock volunteering rates to measure social capital, and heterogeneity based primarily on ethnic fragmentation. We find social capital is positively associated with voter turnout, while heterogeneity is negatively associated. We find robust evidence consistent with ethnic heterogeneity working through information costs and social norms, but less so social capital. We also find a robust interaction between social capital and heterogeneity in their association with turnout, consistent with ethnic heterogeneity raising bridging social capital that has a stronger association with turnout than in‐group bonding social capital.

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Does higher social diversity lower people's contributions to public goods? The case of volunteering in New Zealand

Cited by 4 publications

References 13 publications

Does higher social diversity affect people's contributions to local schools? Evidence from New Zealand

Does higher social diversity affect people's contributions to local schools? Evidence from New Zealand

Youth Suicide, Subjective Well-Being and the Role of Place in New Zealand

Social capital, social heterogeneity, and electoral turnout

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