NCoC: Appendix: Demography, Race/Ethnicity

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Appendix: Demography, Race/Ethnicity

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

January 24, 2011

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Given the very substantial differences in the racial and ethnic composition of Minneapolis-St. Paul and Miami, to what extent does this demographic characteristic explain differences in civic engagement across both cities? The general pattern is that non-Hispanic whites generally have higher levels of civic engagement than minority groups (Appendix Table 5). However, conﬁrming a familiar pattern, non-Hispanic whites in Miami still remain less civically engaged than non-Hispanic whites in Minneapolis-St. Paul (the one exception being attending to public affairs). Indeed, on ﬁve of the civic engagement indicators (volunteering, attend public meetings, donating to charity, non-electoral participation, and voting) the gap between the percentage reporting the activity across both cities is greater for non-Hispanic whites than the gap for non-Hispanic blacks.

When the effects of race/ethnicity are examined while we control for other demographic groups, the difference between non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites completely wash out in both cities (Appendix Figures 5 and 6). The only statistically signiﬁcant difference was in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where non-Hispanic blacks were 13 percentage points less likely to volunteer than non-Hispanic whites. This suggests that the differences between non-Hispanic whites and blacks in both cities are likely attributable to social status variables such as education, income, and also possibly age.

The effects for non-Cuban Hispanics in Miami also were not signiﬁcant, again conﬁrming that differences in civic engagement by race and ethnicity largely vanish when controlling for other variables. Hispanics from South and Central America were 2 percentages points less likely to attend public meeting than non-Hispanic whites. While other Hispanics were 3 percentage points less likely to have worked with neighbors and 19 percentage points less likely to have donated to charity than non-Hispanic whites.

A somewhat different ﬁnding emerges for lower levels of civic engagement for Hispanics, especially Cuban Hispanics in Miami. On ﬁve of the civic engagement items (volunteering, attending public meeting, working with neighbors, donating to charity, and group participation), Cuban Hispanics were less likely to be engaged than non-Hispanic whites. However, the changes in the predicted probabilities were quite modest, with only donating to charity exceeding double-digits, where Cubans were 18 percentage points less likely to donate to charity than non-Hispanic whites.

In Minneapolis-St. Paul, Hispanics were actually 14 percentage points more likely to donate to charity than non-Hispanics whites after controlling for all other variables, but were 27 percentage points less likely to have voted. There were no signiﬁcant differences for Hispanics on any of the other civic engagement indicators. The minority group which was least likely to participate in Minneapolis-St. Paul after controlling for other variables was Asians, who were 8 percentage points less likely to attend a public meeting, 27 percentage points less likely to engage in non-electoral participation, 10 percentage points less likely to participate in one community group, 40 percentage points less likely to vote, and 18 percentage points less likely to be connected with social networks.

Appendix: Demography, Gender • Appendix: Demography, Citizenship

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