Recent trends in civic disengagement

This study takes as its point of departure Putman’s classic study, Bowling Alone, on disengagement among voluntary organisations in America. This study views disengagement in terms of absence from pre-arranged situations, such as booked appointments, and the non-takeup of statutory means-tested benefits. Whereas Putman finds disengagement in America became more common from the 1960s, we find the opposite in the United Kingdom over the last 10 to 20 years. Central governments in the United Kingdom have been active in addressing absence and non-takeup in the areas studied. Absence may be a problem for schools, hospitals and the workplace, but for some pupils and employees they may be a symptom of poor relations within the organisation, and for some patients the outcome of the hospital’s administrative failure. A common stated feature in the non-takeup of means-tested benefits is the stigma associated with it. By way of contrast, the takeup of Child Benefit had been virtually complete. The question – whether the high takeup was because of the administrative simplicity of Child Benefit and its significant cash benefits over the long term, or because it was not means tested – might be resolved post-January 2013, when its eligibility and the size of benefit became income based.