After the Farm Crisis: Religiosity in the Rural United States (original) (raw)

The Role of Religion in Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States: A Review of the Recent Literature

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

The Role of Religion in Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States: A Review of the Recent Literature * This paper presents a critical review and synthesis of recent research on the role of religion in economic and demographic behavior in the United States. Relationships reviewed include the effects of religion on investments in human capital, labor supply and wealth accumulation; union formation and dissolution; and fertility. The paper also comments on the growing literature on the implications of religious dissimilarity between the spouses; on two different, possibly countervailing ways in which religiosity may affect demographic and economic behavior; and on the importance of estimating models that allow for possible non-linearities in the effects of religiosity.

Religious Participation and Economic Conservatism

American Journal of Political Science, 2013

Why do some individuals engage in more religious activity than others? And how does this religious activity influence their economic attitudes? We present a formal model in which individuals derive utility from both secular and religious sources. Our model, which incorporates both demand-side and supply-side explanations of religion, is unusual in that it endogenizes both an individual's religious participation and her preferences over economic policy. Using data on over 70 countries from the pooled World Values Survey, we find that religious participation declines with societal development, an individual's ability to produce secular goods, and state regulations on religion, but that it increases with inequality. We also find that religious participation increases economic conservatism among the poor but decreases it among the rich. Our analysis has important insights for the debate about secularization theory and challenges conventional wisdom regarding the relationship between religious participation and economic conservatism. W hy do some individuals engage in more religious activity than others? How does this influence their political attitudes? Religion and its effect on politics has traditionally been treated as a peripheral issue by political scientists (Fox 2001). However, this situation is changing as the influence of religion becomes more visible and contentious (Gill 2001; Philpott 2009). One need only look to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and parts of Africa, the evangelical upsurge in Latin America, Africa, and parts of East Asia, and the rise of the Christian right in the United States to see the wide-ranging influence of religious groups (Berger 1999). In addition to being key actors in promoting collective action, religious organizations also shape the values and beliefs that influence how individuals behave politically (

Income, Education, and Three Dimensions of Religiosity in the USA

Eastern Economic Journal, 2017

We use American Time Use Survey data and a two-part econometric model to investigate the relationship of income and education to religiosity in the USA. We find some evidence that people are less likely to be religious as their income increases and that religious people spend less time performing religious activities as their incomes rise. The effect of additional education is ambiguous. We also find that while women are more likely to be religious than men and immigrants are more likely to be religious than natives, among religious people there is no significant difference in religiosity by gender or origin.

Dissecting the act of god: an exploration of the effect of religiosity on economic activity

The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics

This research explores whether religiosity has a persistent effect on economic outcomes. We follow a three-step analysis. First, we use a sample of migrants in the United States to establish that religiosity in the country of origin has a lasting effect on the religiosity of migrants. Second, by exploiting variation in the inherited component of religiosity of migrants and controlling only for a baseline set of controls, we uncover a causal link between several aspects of religiosity and income level. The empirical findings of the second step suggest that i) church attendance has a positive impact on income; and ii) stronger faith is associated with a higher income. Finally, we augment the set of controls included in the measure of inherited religiosity in order to capture the effects of social capital, education, and of traits conducive to income growth. When controlling for social capital, the effect of religious attendance on economic outcomes vanishes, and when controlling for t...

State Welfare Spending and Religiosity

Rationality and Society, 2004

What accounts for cross-national variation in religiosity as measured by church attendance and non-religious rates? Examining answers from both secularization theory and the religious economy perspective, we assert that cross-national variation in religious participation is a function of government welfare spending and provide a theory that links macro-sociological outcomes with individual rationality. Churches historically have provided social welfare. As governments gradually assume many of these welfare functions, individuals with elastic preferences for spiritual goods will reduce their level of participation since the desired welfare goods can be obtained from secular sources. Cross-national data on welfare spending and religious participation show a strong negative relationship between these two variables after controlling for other aspects of modernization.

Religion as a Determinant of Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States

Population and Development Review, 2004

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of the institute. Research disseminated by IZA may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit company supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

Religion and Economy

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2006

R eligion has a two-way interaction with political economy. With religion viewed as a dependent variable, a central question is how economic development and political institutions affect religious participation and beliefs. With religion viewed as an independent variable, a key issue is how religiosity affects individual characteristics, such as work ethic, honesty and thrift, and thereby influences economic performance. In this paper, we sketch previous studies of this two-way interaction but focus on our ongoing quantitative research with international data.

E¤ect of Religion on Economic Activity

2014

This research establishes that religiosity has a persistent e¤ect on economic outcomes. First we use a sample of migrants in the US to establish that religiosity at the country of origin has a long lasting e¤ect on the religiosity of migrants. Second, exploiting variations in the inherited component of religiosity of migrants, our analysis uncovers the causal e¤ect of religiosity on economic activity using a panel of countries for the period 1935-2000. The empirical ndings suggest that i) church attendance has a positive impact on economic outcomes; ii) religious beliefs in the existence of god, hell, heaven and miracles have no systematic e¤ect on economic outcomes, and iii) stronger faith is associated with prosperity. Moreover we extend our analysis to uncover the channels via which religiosity operates. Notably, the positive e¤ect of religious participation and of stronger faith on economic outcomes operates via the creation of social capital and the development of traits, such...

Does Religious Affiliation Protect People's Well‐Being? Evidence from the Great Recession after Correcting for Selection Effects

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2020

This paper investigates the effect of religious affiliation on individual well-being. Using Gallup's U.S. Daily Poll between 2008 and 2017, we find that those who are engaged in their local church and view their faith as important to their lives have not only higher levels of subjective well-being (SWB), but also acyclical levels. We show that the acyclicality of SWB among Christians is not driven by selection effects or the presence of greater social capital, but rather a sense of purpose over the business cycle independent of financial circumstances.

Economic hardship, religion and mental health during the midwestern farm crisis

Journal of Rural Studies, 2003

Macro-level economic decline is usually assumed to affect the mental health of individuals but the process by which this occurs and factors that moderate are still not well understood. This study builds from three bodies of literature to address how economic hardship, religion and psychosocial variables affect mental health outcomes in the context of widespread economic crisis in the farm sector. (Parallels exist with other sectors where plant closings, job loss and unemployment occur.) Differential effects of economic hardship and religion were examined using a sample of 800 Ohio farm men and women who experienced the 1980s Midwestern farm crisis. Findings demonstrated that economic hardship was a consistent predictor of stress and depression for both genders. Membership in Fundamentalist denominations increased men's well-being. Affiliation with any religious group enhanced women's mental health. Physical health and social support were associated with lower stress and depression. Coping techniques had mixed effects on stress and depression with both avoidance/denial and support seeking associated with more adverse mental health outcomes. This study shows that macro-level structural changes can result in a context of economic hardship where factors assumed to buffer adverse mental health outcomes fail to do so and where previously neglected factors, such as religion, become important mediators of hardship. r