Volume 11, Issue 20. September 11, 2000. Her estimable talents were in constant demand for every community effort, from leading the townwide campaign to register every eligible voter to serving on the school board. According to this critique, Putnam was too afraid of the wrath of feminists to admit the politically incorrect truth, that the fatal blow to civic life occurred when women left home for work.
Social capital is multifaceted.
All things being equal, those who trust others are more likely to go on picnics, to join the softball league, to volunteer in a soup kitchen, to give to the United Way, to attend religious services, to go to the polls faithfully, or to get involved in a political campaign. However, the relationships among the many components of social capital are anything but simple. Indeed, while being in the work force full time diminishes the number of dinner parties women give and the number of club meetings they attend, it actually enhances their political participation . My colleagues, Nancy Burns of the University of Michigan and Sidney Verba of Harvard, and I are just completing a large-scale study that seeks to unravel the puzzle of why women are still somewhat less politically active than men. It turns out that one of the several factors contributing to the gender gap in participation is the fact that men are more likely than women to be in the work force and, among those employed full time, more likely to have jobs that pay well and demand high levels of education and training.