Even booming professions saw their associations’ market share collapse in sequence

Evidence

Then in each case the postwar membership boom suddenly slowed, halted, and in almost all cases reversed. First to reach its peak and begin to decline was the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1959, followed by the American Dental Association and the American Institute of Architects (both in 1970), the American Bar Association (ABA) in 1977, and finally the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in 1993. While the number of registered nurses in America doubled from 1 million in 1977 to 2 million in 1998, membership in the American Nurses Association (ANA) fell from 190,000 to 175,000, so that the ANA’s “market share” was cut exactly in half from 18 percent of all RNs in 1977 to 9 percent in 1998. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 274

Categorization

• SHARE: The staggered peak dates — AMA 1959, ADA/AIA 1970, ABA 1977, AICPA 1993 — read like a slow-motion domino of associational decline, worth sharing with someone who studies professional guilds.
• XREF: connects to: The association boom of 1960s-1990s was organizational growth without mass membership — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 151; American associational membership collapsed across all major voluntary groups — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 93

Broader Connections

• American associational membership collapsed across all major voluntary groups #exemplifies (0.85) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 93