Network centralities, demographic disparities, and voluntary participation

This article explores racial and gender disparities in civic-network centrality using various social network methods and regression models. We find that civic networks of women and whites exhibit greater network centrality than their counterparts do. Religious organizations are the hub of civic networks, while labor unions and ethnic/civil-rights organizations are more peripheral. Whites tend to have job-related and nondomestic organizations as the core of their civic network. Women rely on domestic organizations and show little advantage over men in overlapping memberships of voluntary associations. These findings provide a more holistic view of racial and gender disparities in social networks.