Foreign membership growth can distort apparent US civic association trends

Evidence

Membership data for missing years were estimated by linear interpolation. Some organizations typically report membership figures including non-U.S. members, and those non-U.S. members typically constitute a growing fraction of total membership; wherever possible, we excluded such non-U.S. members from the data, in order to focus on trends within the United States. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1572

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth checking how many of the 32 associations had large foreign membership shares, since this biases the growth/decline comparison.
• XREF: Connects to Putnam’s broader methodology discussion in the main text about how measurement choices shape the civic decline narrative. — connects to: Proportionally matched growth still alters a group’s internal relations — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 3223; Even generous population estimate errors leave PTA membership declines intact — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1573; Contradictory local crosscurrents still reveal shared national trends in civic life. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 68

Broader Connections

• Proportionally matched growth still alters a group’s internal relations #qualifies (0.80) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 3223