Chicagoland citizens are slightly more likely to claim group membership than their national peers (see Figure 3), narrowly trailing their state counterparts on this measure. This includes school groups, neighborhood or community associations, sports and recreational associations, church membership, and service or civic associations. They are only slightly less likely to assume leadership roles (Illinois residents as a whole are more likely), and the same relationship holds for meeting attendance. Group leadership is less common in urban areas (7.1% of urban residents serve as leaders nationwide) compared with rural residents (10.3%). Leaders are more likely to work with neighbors to improve the community, express political voice, volunteer, and vote.

Group membership in Chicagoland can also be parsed along generational lines. Involvement is highest among Baby Boomers (42.6%), followed closely by the Silent Generation (41.0%), and then yielding to signicant gaps with Generation X (35.6%) and Millennials (28.8%). One would expect group membership to grow with age as occupational, church–based, and community ties strengthen over the course of the lifecycle.

Slight differences in group membership also exist throughout the Chicagoland region. Group membership, leadership, and meeting attendance are all more common among suburban residents than City of Chicago residents. The largest disparity centers on meeting attendance, which is reported by 24.3% of suburban residents as opposed to 16.7% of Chicagoans.

Finally, there are signicant race–based disparities in group membership among Chicagoland residents. Whereas 41.8% of Whites claim membership in one or more groups, African–Americans trail slightly on this front (35.2%), and Latinos lag behind both groups (17.6%) by a signicant margin. These numbers track national trends in recent decades, as African–Americans were mobilized by the Civil Rights Movement, and Latinos are plagued by language barriers and in some cases problems with their citizenship status. 16

The most common group that Chicagoland residents participate in is religious institutions (see Figure 4), followed by school groups and community and neighborhood organizations, sports or recreational associations, and service or civic associations. Once more, each of these group forms attracts only a small minority of the population of potential participants. While most of these groups are not overtly political in orientation, they do develop member skills and establish relationships transferable to the political world.