These voluntary or non-government organisations take many forms, ranging from service organisations and churches to sporting clubs and trade unions. But there is real cause for concern in Australia about the level of this civic engagement. For a start, there has been a distinct fall in the number of people volunteering. One explanation is, of course, that we now have more women in the workforce. In the past, after women brought up their children, they very often gave a lot of time to voluntary organisations.
Churches report declining attendances, and membership of political parties and unions is falling.
These kinds of bodies are often involved in voluntary work. A further explanation is the diminishing interest of new generations in voluntary organisations, some of which are institutions to which the young feel no link. Harvard researcher Dr Robert Putnam has found a steady and disturbing fall in civic engagement in the US since the 1960s. He considered many possible factors and concluded that the culprit was television. Putnam's work on civic engagement has shown how important civic association and social capital are, not merely to achieve a healthy democracy but also commercial and industrial progress.