Social capital--networks of civic engagements, norms of reciprocity, and attitudes of trust--is widely seen as playing a key role for the health of democracy. While many authors have examined the consequences of social capital, there is a pressing need to explore its sources. This collection brings together leading American and European scholars in the first comparative analysis of how social trust and other civic attitudes are generated. The contributors to this volume examine the generation of social capital from two directions: society-based approaches that emphasize voluntary...

Addressing the lack of understanding regarding the lives of same-sex couples, this book examines the sociodemographic characteristics of partnered gay men and lesbians. The authors draw on U.S. census data to present quantitative analyses of topics pertaining to gay men and lesbians that have previously been relatively unexamined or assessed mainly through qualitative studies. They explore where gay men and lesbians live, why they choose those residences, income inequality, occupations, dimensions of family attachments, relationship commitments, and family structures. The census data allows...

This is the first book to examine the study of sexuality from a demographic perspective. The focus is on analyzing sexuality as its own demographic topic, rather than as a variable in studies of sexually transmitted infection or other health-related topics.