Diversity, Segregation, Trust, and Altruism:
CHAPTERS AVAILABLE AT BOTTOM OF PAGE!
Generalized trust is a value that leads to many positive outcomes for a society–greater tolerance of minorities, greater levels of volunteering and giving to charity, better functioning government, less corruption, more open markets, and greater economic growth. Generalized trust is faith in people you don’t know who are likely to be different from yourself. Yet, several people, most notably Robert Putnam, now argue that trust is lower when we are surrounded by people who are different from ourselves. This view is mistaken. Diversity (fractionalization) is not the culprit in lower levels of trust. Instead, it is residential segregation–which isolates people from those who may be of a different background. Segregation is one of the key reasons why contact with people who are different from ourselves does not lead to greater trust: Such contact may not be so frequent and it is not likely to take place frequently and in an atmosphere of equality, as argued by Allport, Forbes, and Pettigrew.
My book in progress addresses these issues and I argue that people who live in segregated areas and who do not have diverse social networks are less likely to be trusting of people who are different from themselves and to be less likely to engage in the sort of altruistic acts that are associated with generalized trust--giving to charity and volunteering.
Segregation and diversity are not the same thing. Measures of segregation and diversity among American communities (for the year 2000) are only modestly correlated (r = .297). Segregation is more strongly linked to economic inequality than is diversity, while diversity is far more strongly linked to the non-white population share in a community.
Concentrated minorities are more likely to develop a strong identity that supercedes a national sense of identification (trust in people who are different from oneself) and to build local institutions and political bodies that enhance this sense of separateness. Geographical isolation may breed in-group identity at the expense of the larger society. Segregation may also lead to greater political organization by minority groups, which can establish their own power bases in opposition to the political organizations dominated by the majority group as their share of the citizenry grows.
In diverse settings I find support for a far stronger linkage between segregation and trust than for diversity and trust. And trust has consequences, as I argued in The Moral Foundations of Trust (2002), most notably altruistic deeds. I consider not only the roots of trust, but also how diversity and segregation shape volunteering and giving to charity. I employ data from national surveys in the United States, among whites, African-Americans, and Latinos, as well as from the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, and Australia.
I also estimate models using aggregate data from American cities and across nations using recently developed measures of residential segregation to support my theoretical claim that segregation creates conditions that should lead to lower trust and greater inequality. I also show that segregated communities in the United States have higher rates of violent crime and lower wellbeing. I consider how segregation might lead to either fewer altruistic acts–or to altruistic behavior primarily benefiting one’s own in-group. Finally, I consider whether residential segregation is itself endogenous. I estimate simultaneous equation models for the US and the UK and find, as have many others, that people's values and racial attitudes play a big role in where they choose to live. Trusting people are more likely to live in integrated neighborhoods and to have diverse friendship networks. So most of the effects from having diverse ties in integrated neighborhoods depend upon where you choose to live. After taking residential choice into account, there are still small effects of diverse ties in integrated neighborhoods for whites in the US, but not for African-Americans or for any ethnic or racial group in the UK. These results indicate, as I found in The Moral Foundations of Trust, that trust does not change readily--especially in a world where people choose friends who are largely like themselves and who choose neighborhoods based upon both trust and racial attitudes. I then examine how housing policies in different countries may have either promoted ties across ethnic and racial boundaries--or failed to do so.
The book, Segregation and Mistrust: Diversity, Isolation, and Social Cohesion, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Briefly, I argue in the prospectus (download on the link above): that diversity does not drive down trust, but that residential segregation does reduce both trust and altruistic behavior. Concentrated minorities are more likely to develop a strong identity that supercedes a national sense of identification (trust in people who are different from oneself) and to build local institutions and political bodies that enhance this sense of separateness. Geographical isolation may breed in-group identity at the expense of the larger society. Segregation may also lead to greater political organization by minority groups, which can establish their own power bases in opposition to the political organizations dominated by the majority group as their share of the citizenry grows. In diverse settings I find support for a far stronger linkage between segregation and trust than for diversity and trust. And trust has consequences, as I argued in Uslaner (2002), most notably altruistic deeds. I consider not only the roots of trust, but also how diversity and segregation shape volunteering and giving to charity. I employ data from national surveys in the United States, among whites, African-Americans, and Latinos, as well as from the United Kingdom and Sweden, and Canada. I also estimate models using aggregate data from American cities using recently developed measures of residential segregation to support my theoretical claim that segregation creates conditions that should lead to lower trust. Finally, I consider how segregation might lead to either fewer altruistic acts–or to altruistic behavior primarily benefitting one’s own in-group. Segregation, however, is not exogenous: Whites generally prefer to live in white neighborhoods. Minorities may prefer to live in mixed neighborhoods, but often face discrimination in housing and the simple reluctance of whites to live among them. Whites who are more trusting are more likely to favor living in integrated neighborhoods–so the direction of the linkage between trust and segregation may not be so clear, perhaps limiting the impact of integrated neighborhoods on trust.
A paper in Comparative Sociology, "Trust, Diversity, and Segregation in the United States and the United Kingdom," presents data from the US and the UK. Generalized trust is faith in people you don’t know who are likely to be different from yourself. Yet, several people, most notably Robert Putnam, now argue that trust is lower when we are surrounded by people who are different from ourselves. This view is mistaken. Diversity (fractionalization) is not the culprit in lower levels of trust. Instead, it is residential segregation–which isolates people from those who may be of a different background. Segregation is one of the key reasons why contact with people who are different from ourselves does not lead to greater trust: Such contact may not be so frequent and it is not likely to take place frequently and in an atmosphere of equality, as argued by Allport, Forbes, and Pettigrew. I show that diversity is a proxy for the minority share in a community and that: (1) segregation, especially in diverse communities, drives down trust more than diversity does; but (2) close personal ties in integrated diverse communities build s trust, but more so in the United States than in the United Kingdom, and more for majority white communities than for minorities. Download the PowerPoint as well.
A less technical paper, "Segregation, Mistrust, and Minorities," has been published in Ethnicities. It summarizes my work so far on the the US and the UK, focuses on the implications for immigration, and also summarizes some of the results taking endogeneity (two-way causation between trust and living in integrated neighborhoods with diverse friendship networks) into account.
The first paper from this project "Does Diversity Drive Down Trust?," is forthcoming in Per Selle and Sanjeev Prakash, eds., Civil Society, the State and Social Capital: Theory, Evidence, Policy (London: Routledge) where I argue that there are different forms of diversity that might matter (or not matter) for trust and that much of the existing literature does not make this distinction well. I examine a wide range of measures of diversity and fractionalization cross-nationally as well as survey evidence and find that only one measure of diversity matters: Countries where minority populations are segregated from the majority are less trusting. The PowerPoint presentation was presented at the 2005 Canadian Political Science Association meetings and the basis for a keynote address to the Conference on "Understanding Diversity: Mapping and Measuring," organized by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Italy. Supported by Marie Curie Series of Conferences “EURODIV - Cultural Diversity in Europe: a Series of Conferences” and at the Conference on Civil Society, the State, and Social Capital, Bergen, Norway, May, 2005.
Another paper, "Trust, Diversity, and Segregation" extends the framework and presents supporting data. I show that residential segregation does lower generalized trust cross-nationally–and that inequality seems to have a stronger effect when segregation is high. I also estimate a hierarchical model of trust cross-nationally and show that residential segregation drives down trust across nations. I also show that people who live in integrated neighborhoods and who have diverse social networks are more likely to be trusting, using the Social Capital Benchmark Survey and the Knight Community Indicators Survey. I argue that measures of diversity are surrogate measures for the shares of minorities living in a community: We know that minorities are less trusting so it is the racial and ethnic composition of a community, rather than the level of diversity, that seems to drive down trust.
CHAPTER DRAFTS AVAILABLE HERE:
CHAPTER 1: Introduction, the importance and roots of generalized trust, and the plan of the book.
CHAPTER 2: I examine contact theory–the idea that if we get to know people who are different from ourselves, we will become more tolerant of others of their background. The evidence on "simple" contact is mixed. A more convincing argument is Allport’s "optimal conditions" that: (1) context matters (where you live is important); and (2) equality matters (it is not simply knowing people of different backgrounds, but you must establish friendships based upon equal status). I argue that diverse ties themselves are not sufficient to lead to greater trust and that it is segregation rather than diversity that drives down trust. Segregation, far more than diversity, leads to greater inequality–and I show that this is the case in both American communities and across nations. I then show that diversity and segregation are not the same thing–they are only modestly correlated. Segregation, far more than diversity, leads to negative outcomes across American communities: higher rates of violent crimes, lower levels of wellbeing. Across American communities and across nations, segregation is a key determinant of inequality. Across countries, there is a chain from segregation to inequality to low trust. I end Chapter 2 by an examination of attitudes toward multiculturalism and trust–arguing that strong ethnic identities (in the United States and Canada) as well as support for policies maintaining separate identities (cross-nationally) are associated with lower levels of trust.
I turn next to case studies of the United States (CHAPTER 3), Canada (CHAPTER 4) , the United Kingdom (CHAPTER 5) , Sweden, and Australia (CHAPTER 6) and an analysis of the roots of secular and religious charitable giving and volunteering (CHAPTER 7). The central results are:
living in an integrated community and having friends of diverse backgrounds leads to increased trust.
the effects are greatest when there is less trust and more segregation–in the United States.
the effects are generally greater for the white majority than for minority groups–except in the cases of Canada and Australia, where minorities have high levels of education (and trust) because of a "point system" that limits who may immigrate to these countries.
the effects are powerful for minorities, but insignificant for the majority, in Sweden–where both native Swedes and immigrants have high levels of trust. Unlike Canada and Australia, the high-trusting minority respondents are not selected on the basis of their education, language familiarity, or skills. Most immigrants to Sweden come as refugees from strife-torn places. They should be low in trust, but Sweden’s universalistic social welfare regime builds equality and trust.
in the United States and the United Kingdom, people who live in integrated communities with friends of different backgrounds are more likely to give to and volunteer for secular causes and generally are less likely to give their time and money to religious charities. Allport’s optimal conditions promote reaching out to help people who are different from yourself rather than people of your own background and faith. Data on the sources of volunteering and charitable giving are only available for the United States and the United Kingdom. Religion plays a much stronger role in public life in the United States than in any of the other countries I examine, including Britain. So the similarity of results for the United States and the United Kingdom indicates that the argument is not simply a result of the centrality of religion to much of altruism in the United States. Whether the logic extends to the most secular of the five countries I consider–Sweden–is unclear and not testable with available data.1
it is segregation rather than diversity that drives down trust and altruism. Diversity does lead to less trust in some estimations, but the positive effects of living in an integrated community with friends of diverse backgrounds outweigh any negative impacts of heterogeneity.
We cannot simply build trust by creating integrated communities. First, integrated areas do not guarantee social interaction, much less the strong ties underlying Allport’s optimal conditions. But beyond that, data from the United States and the United Kingdom (CHAPTER 8) point to a deeper problem: Residential choice is not random. Low trusting people (as well as people holding negative racial stereotypes) are less likely to want to live in integrated neighborhoods (with diverse friendship networks in the United Kingdom). Once I take this into account statistically (by estimating simultaneous equation models for trust and residential choice), the positive effects of Allport’s optimal conditions either vanish or become far weaker. Housing policy is not a quick fix to increase trust–and the experimental programs in the United States to develop integrated communities and improve housing for the poor have had mixed success (CHAPTER 9). Ultimately, the problems of segregated communities come back to the larger problem of inequality. Diversity is also a culprit–but the problem is not with minorities, but rather with majority groups’ unwillingness to live in integrated neighborhoods. Tackling inequality is critical to developing more trust but it does not seem to be on most political agendas–except in Sweden. In the absence of policies that would limit segregation and combat inequality, the focus should shift to people who have more favorable impressions of minorities and who don’t choose where they live based upon race: young people.
DOWNLOAD THE TABLES AND REFERENCES HERE.