NCoC: Appendix: Demography, Income

Create an
Account Sign-In to
NCoC.net

Home About Programs Media Research Discussions Solutions

Appendix: Demography, Income

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

January 24, 2011

Print Page Email Friend

Downloads

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

Along with education, family income reﬂects a second social status variable that has been shown to affect civic engagement. The ﬁndings for Minneapolis-St. Paul and Miami conﬁrm that civic engagement increases as income rises. However, mirroring the ﬁndings across the cities for level of educational attainment, the effect of income on civic engagement in Miami is much less evident than in Minneapolis-St. Paul (Appendix Table 2). At all income levels, individuals in Minneapolis-St. Paul were more likely to report having engaged in the 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. This pattern is noticeable even in an item like voting, where an income gap is often evident; individuals in the highest income group in Miami were only 6 percentage points more likely to have reported voting than those in the lowest income group in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Interestingly, when the separate effects of income are examined, statistical signiﬁcance for some of the civic engagement items is achieved, suggesting the effects of income, in some cases, can be explained away by other demographic variables, most likely level of education. Speciﬁcally, income has an effect only on four of the civic engagement items for Minneapolis-St. Paul (volunteering, donating to charity, voting, and being connected to a social network) and four for Miami (volunteering, donating to charity, attending to public affairs, and voting). Income had the largest effect for Minneapolis-St. Paul for volunteering, while it had the biggest effect on voting for Miami. Its effects on donating to charity were almost identical in both cities (Appendix Figure 2).

Appendix: Demography, Education • Appendix: Demography, Age

If you like this kind of content, sign up for an NCoC.net account and we'll customize your homepage recommendations based on your interests..

NCoC on

View Timeline

Tweets by @NCoC

My Six Month AnniversaryMay 2, 2013 Michigan Releases its 2012 Civic Health Index TodayApril 24, 2013 N.H. Ranks High in Civic Health, UNH Carsey Institute FindsApril 17, 2013

Dave DelucaJune 21, 2012 Jacob SoboroffApril 11, 2012 Dev AujlaFebruary 28, 2012