Synopses & Reviews
From all sides we hear that Americans are becoming increasingly self-absorbed and disconnected, and that their social and civic responsibility is on the decline. A more encouraging profile emerges in this study, which emphasizes the domains of life in which we spend most of our time-work, family, kin, friends, and home care. The book is based on a national, representative survey of more than 3,000 Americans aged 25 to 74, supplemented by intensive interviews with Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans in New York City, an eight-day time budget study of daily experiences of contact and giving to others, and in-depth interviews on what social responsibility means in their lives.
The book explores in detail the extent to which adults contribute time to caregiving and social support, and the extent of their financial assistance to members of their families; the time given to volunteer work; and financial contributions to a variety of causes, charities, and organizations. The authors also examine how these contributions are affected by the time and effort required by job obligations, and they find that to the extent they are able, adults do provide emotional and social support, and even hands-on caregiving and financial help, to family and friends.
A major focus of the study is on age and gender differences, and midlife proves to be a watershed time of transition when civic activities increase as family obligations decline. For example, felt obligations to family members and to jobs decrease with age, while volunteer service increases with age. Less-educated adults give more of their time; better-educated adults give more money. Also, women give more time, and men more money when the sexes are compared. Between generations, social and emotional support is reciprocal, but reflecting the greatly improved finances of today's elderly, money flows largely from the elderly to the younger members of a family.
Americans work longer hours with shorter vacations than adults in any other Western society, and their labor combined with the taxes they pay are critical contributions to the larger society. And although Americans may have more fragile marriages and bear fewer children than ever, the ties between grandparents, parents, and children remain strong across our expanded life spans. All told, this important study adds a hopeful new voice to the overwhelmingly negative debate about the current state of our civic and social lives.
Synopsis
From all sides we hear that Americans are becoming increasingly self-absorbed and disconnected, and that our interest in social and civic responsibility is on the decline. A more encouraging profile emerges in this study of Americans at work, at home with their families, and in their communities. The book is based on a national, representative survey of more than 3,000 Americans aged 25 to 74and#8212;plus in-depth interviews with adults drawn from the surveyand#8212;to find out what Americans mean by social responsibility.
The book explores the extent to which adults contribute time to caregiving, social support, and financial assistance to family members; the time given to volunteer work and financial contributions to various causes, charities, and organizations; and how these contributions are affected by job obligations. A major focus is on age and gender differences, which shows midlife to be a transitional time when civic activities increase as family obligations decline. All told, the study adds a hopeful new voice to the overwhelmingly negative debate about the current state of our civic and social lives.
About the Author
Alice S. Rossi, editor of the volume and author of six of the thirteen chapters, is the Harriet Martineau Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a past president of the American Sociological Association and the author of many books, including Sexuality across the Life Course, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Both she and the contributing authors were members or associates of the Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, a network supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Table of Contents
Preface
I. Introduction
1. Contemporary Dialogue on Civil Society and Social Responsibility
Alice S. Rossi
II. Life Course and Social and Structural Variation in Social Responsibility
2. Judgments of One's Own Global Contributions to the Welfare of Others: Life-Course Trajectories and Predictors
William Fleeson
3. Domains and Dimensions of Social Responsibility: A Sociodemographic Profile
Alice S. Rossi
4. Temporal Patterns in Social Responsibility
David M. Almeida, Donald A. McDonald, John J. Havens, and Paul G. Schervish
5. Local Caring: Social Capital and Social Responsibility in New York=s Minority Neighborhoods
Katherine S. Newman
6. Cultural and Contextual Correlates of Obligation to Family and Community among Urban Black and Latino Adults
Diane Hughes
III. Social Responsibility and Human Development
7. Developmental Roots of Adult Social Responsibility
Alice S. Rossi
8. The Impact of Family Problems on Social Responsibility
Alice S. Rossi
9. Themes and Variations in American Understandings of Responsibility
Hazel Rose Markus, Carol D. Ryff, Alana Conner, Eden K. Pudberry, and Katherine L. Barnett
IV. Social Responsibility and Work
10. The Association between Chronic Medical Conditions and Work Impairment
Ronald C. Kessler, Kristin D. Mickelson, Catherine Barber, and Philip Wang
11. The Interplay of Work and Family and Its Impact on Community Service
Alice S. Rossi
12. Social Responsibility and Paid Work in Contemporary American Life
Anne Colby, Lorrie Sippola, and Erin Phelps
V. Summary
13. Analysis Highlights and Overall Assessment
Alice S. Rossi
Appendix: Methodology of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States
List of Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index