Social Capital Over Time and Across Generations: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Application

In this exercise we will explore time and generational trends for several measures of social capital over the 1972-2004 period. Note that some of the questions used in the GSS vary from year to year and not all questions are asked in every survey. The variables needed for this exercise come from different years and therefore different samples. While this is not ideal, each year's subfile should be fairly representative of the general population because the GSS uses a national probability sample.

For this exercise, we recoded the ordinal variable AGE into a more useful categorical variable, AGECAT, with 4 categories: 18-34 (coded as 1), 35-49 (2), 50-64 (3), and 65-89 (4).

Political, Civic, and Religious Participation

Voting behavior offers one measure of political and civic participation. The variables VOTE72 and VOTE04 indicate whether respondents voted in the 1972 and 2004 presidential elections. Examine the crosstabs of each of VOTE72 and VOTE04 with AGECAT. What percentage of 18-34 year olds voted in 1972? In 2004? Which age group was most likely to vote in 1972? In 2004?

The variable ATTEND measures how often respondents attend religious services. It contains 8 categories--too many for useful analysis. We collapsed the categories from 8 to 4, where 0 = never, 1 = several times a year, 2 = several times a month, and 3 = once a week or more. We named the new variable CHURCH.

Consider the crosstab betweenCHURCH and AGECAT, using YEAR (1972, 2004) as control. First take a look at the "row total" column in each table. Has the percentage of respondents who said "never" changed between 1972 and 2004? What percentage of respondents answered "once a week or more" in 2004 compared to 1972? Are these results consistent across age groups?

Informal Networks

Examine participation in groups and organizations by running a comparison of means analysis between MEMNUM (number of memberships) and AGECAT, with YEAR (1974, 2004) in the column variable. Has the average number of memberships increased or decreased between 1974 and 2004? Which age group shows the most change?

The variables SOCREL, SOCOMMUN, and SOCFREND indicate how often respondents spend a social evening with relatives, neighbors, and friends respectively. We recoded each variable, collapsing the categories from 7 to 5 and reversing the coding so that higher numbers meant higher levels of sociability (from 0="Never" to 4="Several times a week"). We named the new variables SOCRELS, SOCNEIGH, and SOCFRDS.

Consider the results of the crosstabs between SOCRELS and YEAR, SOCNEIGH and YEAR, and SOCFRDS and YEAR, limiting the analysis to the years 1974 and 2004. Are there significant differences in how much people socialize with relatives, neighbors and friends in 2004 compared to 1974?

Mutual Trust

To assess whether the level of mutual trust has changed over the past 30 years, we ran a crosstab between the variables TRUST and AGECAT, using YEAR (1972, 2004) as control. First, take a look at the "Row Total" column in the first two tables. In 1972, what percentage of respondents said that most people can be trusted? In 2004? Which age group seems to have experienced the greatest change in the level of trust between 1972 and 2004?

Altruism

Altruism will be assessed using the variable VOLCHRTY, which measures how often respondents have done volunteer work for a charity in the past year. This variable contains 6 categories: "More than once a week" (1), "Once a week" (2), "Once a month" (3), "At least two or three times in the past year" (4), "Once in the past year" (5), and "Not at all in the past year" (6). We recoded it to exclude those who responded "Don't know" or did not answer. We also collapsed the categories from 6 to 4 and reversed the coding so that higher numbers meant higher levels of altruism (3="Once a week or more" 2="Once a month" 1="One to three times per year" and 0="Not at all in the past year"). We named the new variable CHARITY. 2004 is the only year for which there is data for this variable.

Examine the results of the crosstab between CHARITY and AGECAT. Do there appear to be generational differences in volunteerism?

Note: The online data analysis system (DAS) used on this site uses a system called Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA), developed and maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. Documentation for DAS/SDA can be found on their Web site.

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography