"Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital"

He measures the trends in U.S. civic engagement of declining membership in traditional voluntary organizations, including Parent–Teacher Associations, the Boy Scouts, and the Red Cross. Civic engagement and social connectedness are important factors in addressing education, urban poverty, crime, unemployment, and health outcomes. Trust and generalized reciprocity can help reduce opportunism and corruption in public life. But people have become disaffiliated from public life and distrustful of government, through such experiences as prominent assassinations, social unrest over the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal. Declines can also be seen in many fraternal organizations, like the Lions, Shriners, and Elks. Putnam also offers his most famous statistic, that of declining participation in recreational bowling leagues. While Americans are still bowling in growing numbers, they are more frequently “bowling alone.”