The downside of diversity

[Harold Schiffman]

The Boston Globe
The downside of diversity

A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life.
What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?

By Michael Jonas  |  August 5, 2007

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic
diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to
pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our
differences make us stronger. But a massive new study, based on
detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has
concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam
-- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic
engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community,
the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give
to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse
communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do
in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic
engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic
health are lower in more diverse settings.

"The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University
of Michigan political scientist. The study comes at a time when the
future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political
debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it
poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is
already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm
large-scale immigration causes to the nation's social fabric. But with
demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward
greater diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle
the unsettling social changes that Putnam's research predicts.

"We can't ignore the findings," says Ali Noorani, executive director
of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The
big question we have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what
are the next steps?" The study is part of a fascinating new portrait
of diversity emerging from recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows,
makes us uncomfortable -- but discomfort, it turns out, isn't always a
bad thing. Unease with differences helps explain why teams of
engineers from different cultures may be ideally suited to solve a
vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic give-and-take,
generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people with more
similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, Putnam's
work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more diverse
populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective
needs and goals.

His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge
for Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in
the pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad
news, Putnam has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered
the initial raw data in 2000 and issued a press release the following
year outlining the results. He then spent several years testing other
possible explanations. When he finally published a detailed scholarly
analysis in June in the journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he
faced criticism for straying from data into advocacy. His paper argues
strongly that the negative effects of diversity can be remedied, and
says history suggests that ethnic diversity may eventually fade as a
sharp line of social demarcation.

"Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining
such social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep
talk," wrote conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange
County Register op-ed titled "Greater diversity equals more misery."
Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic
player, someone willing to describe social problems and then have a
hand in addressing them. He says social science should be
"simultaneously rigorous and relevant," meeting high research
standards while also "speaking to concerns of our fellow citizens."
But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and race, Putnam worries that
many people hear only what they want to.

"It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were
to deny the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by
diversity," he writes in the new report. "It would be equally
unfortunate if an ahistorical and ethnocentric conservatism were to
deny that addressing that challenge is both feasible and desirable."
Putnam is the nation's premier guru of civic engagement. After
studying civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his
attention to the US, publishing an influential journal article on
civic engagement in 1995 that he expanded five years later into the
best-selling "Bowling Alone." The book sounded a national wake-up call
on what Putnam called a sharp drop in civic connections among
Americans. It won him audiences with presidents Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush, and made him one of the country's best known social
scientists.

Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in "social
capital," a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the
social networks -- whether friendships or religious congregations or
neighborhood associations -- that he says are key indicators of civic
well-being. When social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are
better places to live. Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier;
and more citizens vote. The results of his new study come from a
survey Putnam directed among residents in 41 US communities, including
Boston. Residents were sorted into the four principal categories used
by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. They were asked
how much they trusted their neighbors and those of each racial
category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes and
practices, including their views on local government, their
involvement in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged
in more diverse communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation,
affecting everything from political engagement to the state of social
ties.

Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about
coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel
Patrick Moynihan's landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated
with the breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of
being pilloried as the bearer of "an inconvenient truth," says Putnam.

After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time
"kicking the tires really hard" to be sure the study had it right.
Putnam realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to
be larger, have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more
mobility among their residents -- all factors that could depress
social capital independent of any impact ethnic diversity might have.

"People would say, 'I bet you forgot about X,'" Putnam says of the
string of suggestions from colleagues. "There were 20 or 30 X's." But
even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection
remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his
findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to
"distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to
withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their
community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and
work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to
agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can
actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the
television." "People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to
'hunker down' -- that is, to pull in like a turtle," Putnam writes.

In documenting that hunkeringdown, Putnam challenged the two dominant
schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the "contact"
theory and the "conflict" theory. Under the contact theory, more time
spent with those of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding
and harmony between groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity
produces tension and discord. Putnam's findings reject both theories.
In more diverse communities, he says, there were neither great bonds
formed across group lines nor heightened ethnic tensions, but a
general civic malaise. And in perhaps the most surprising result of
all, levels of trust were not only lower between groups in more
diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.
"Diversity, at least in the short run," he writes, "seems to bring out
the turtle in all of us."

The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it's become
commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but
researchers in the field say they shouldn't be.

"It's an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the
challenges created by diversity," says Harvard economist Edward
Glaeser.

In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated
that roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between
the US and Europe -- Europe spends far more -- can be attributed to
the greater ethnic diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower
national social welfare spending in the US is a "macro" version of the
decreased civic engagement Putnam found in more diverse communities
within the country.

Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15
recent studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with
lower levels of social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked,
for example, to lower school funding, census response rates, and trust
in others. Kahn and Costa's own research documented higher desertion
rates in the Civil War among Union Army soldiers serving in companies
whose soldiers varied more by age, occupation, and birthplace.

Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are
also less likely to look out for one another. "Everyone is a little
self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff," says Kahn.

. . .

So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles -- the
great melting-pot cities that drive the world's creative and financial
economies?

The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is
at odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where
ethnic diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the
discomfort diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the
short run, is a liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of
emerging research suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to
driving productivity and innovation. In high-skill workplace settings,
says Scott Page, the University of Michigan political scientist, the
different ways of thinking among people from different cultures can be
a boon.

"Because they see the world and think about the world differently than
you, that's challenging," says Page, author of "The Difference: How
the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and
Societies." "But by hanging out with people different than you, you're
likely to get more insights. Diverse teams tend to be more
productive."

In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling
alone, but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the
workplace may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the
economy and of creative culture.

Page calls it the "diversity paradox." He thinks the contrasting
positive and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities,
but "there's got to be a limit." If civic engagement falls off too
far, he says, it's easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity
beginning to wane as well. "That's what's unsettling about his
findings," Page says of Putnam's new work.

Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more
homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam's worst
fears about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream
of conservative commentary has begun -- from places like the Manhattan
Institute and "The American Conservative" -- highlighting the harm the
study suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says
he's also received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted
language. "It certainly is not pleasant when David Duke's website
hails me as the guy who found out racism is good," he says.

In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge
in a broader context by describing how social identity can change over
time. Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way
to "more encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious
sense of 'we,'" he writes.

Growing up in the 1950s in small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the
religion of virtually every member of his high school graduating class
because, he says, such information was crucial to the question of "who
was a possible mate or date." The importance of marrying within one's
faith, he says, has largely faded since then, at least among many
mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.

While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more
stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term
prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.

In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses
it to help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America
is not only inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for
smoothing over the divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam
argues that Americans can help that process along through targeted
efforts. He suggests expanding support for English-language
instruction and investing in community centers and other places that
allow for "meaningful interaction across ethnic lines."

Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in
offering ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for
stepping out of the role of dispassionate researcher. "You're just
supposed to tell your peers what you found," says John Leo, senior
fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't
expect academics to fret about these matters."

But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what
Putnam has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to
research questions involving social capital, he has directed the
Saguaro Seminar, a project he started at Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government that promotes efforts throughout the country to increase
civic connections in communities.

"Social scientists are both scientists and citizens," says Alan Wolfe,
director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at
Boston College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam's efforts to affect
some of the phenomena he studies.

Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a
social scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a
civic leader. There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who
never produce research results at odds with their own worldview.

"The problem too often," says Wolfe, "is people are never
uncomfortable about their findings."

Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by
MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston.
(c) Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company


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