http://www.profam.org/pub/nr/xnr_1805.htm
New Research
The Howard Center
May 2004
While cultural elites look down on the 1950s with disdain, Harvard’s Robert Putnam’s noted 2000 book, Bowling Alone, nevertheless concedes that the family-oriented and marriage-friendly era yielded far greater “social capital” and civic mindedness compared to the present. Judging from a study of World War Two-era women, an important factor that contributed to that greater level of volunteerism, community service, and civic leadership was that these ladies pursued a very different path than their daughters, largely staying out of the workplace and putting their energies instead into their families and local communities.
Sociologists Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, Kristie Long Foley, and Glen H. Elder, Jr. analyzed the Stanford-Terman longitudinal data archive (1925), which provided a sample of 542 white women from Northern California, born between 1903 and 1924, who participated in three waves of surveys (1940, 1950, and 1960) that assessed their levels of community service. While one-third of the women reported participating in one form of community service in the first wave, two-thirds reported the same in the latter two waves. In addition, the number of activities or organizations in which they were involved increased between 1950 and 1960.
In three statistical models that controlled, respectively, for age, the last two waves, and husband’s occupation, clear patterns related to community service emerged. In all three models, participation in the paid labor force hindered community service (p<.001 in all three), while religiosity as well as having children (ages 6-18) were positively associated with community service (p<.001 in all three models).