EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century

E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century

Introduction

Immigration and multicultural diversity have powerful advantages for both sending and receiving countries. Yet what about the effects on social capital? This thorough study, by renowned Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam finds a negative relation between increasing diversity and sense of community. Its findings are based upon interviews with 30,000 Americans from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.

Description

Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.

Methodology

The evidence comes from a large nationwide survey, the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, carried out in 2000, with a total sample size of roughly 30,000. Embedded within the nationwide sample is a representative national sample of 3,000, as well as smaller samples representative of 41 very different communities across the United States, ranging from large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Boston to small towns and rural areas like Yakima, Washington, rural South Dakota and the Kanawha Valley in the mountains of West Virginia.

Another important methodological feature of this survey is that it was conducted simultaneously with the national census of 2000, and virtually every interview in our survey was ‘geo-coded’ (i.e. for the vast majority of our respondents, the researchers know exactly where they live, and thus know the demographic characteristics of the census tract within which they live). Race, education, income, marital status and so on of the respondents, and also the race, education, income, marital status and so on of their neighbours are known to the researchers.

Conclusions

Ethnic diversity will increase substantially in virtually all modern societies over the next several decades, in part because of immigration. Increased immigration and diversity are not only inevitable, but over the long run they are also desirable. Ethnic diversity is, on balance, an important social asset, as the history of my own country demonstrates.
In the short to medium run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity challenge social solidarity and inhibit social capital. In support of this provocative claim I wish to adduce some new evidence, drawn primarily from the United States. In order to elaborate on the details of this new evidence, this portion of my article is longer and more technical than my discussion of the other two core claims, but all three are equally important.
In the medium to long run, on the other hand, successful immigrant societies create new forms of social solidarity and dampen the negative effects of diversity by constructing new, more encompassing identities. Thus, the central challenge for modern, diversifying societies is to create a new, broader sense of ‘we’.

Contact info

Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of Government
Robert D. Putnam (Professor of Political Science)

Publication date

15/06/2007

Researcher

Robert D. Putnam

Links

Visit the John F. Kennedy School of Government website

Download “E Pluribus Unum” (PDF, Eng, 825 KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords

Social inclusion & integration