An economic perspective on religious education: complements and substitutes in a human capital portfolio

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in An Economic Perspective on Religious Education: Complements and Substitutes in a Human Capital PortfolioCarmel U. Chiswick 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. D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA 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. This paper models the tradeoffs between education in secular subjects, formal and informal, and the formation of religion-specific human capital. It explores some implications of negative externalities between religious and secular education. Applications include the tension between science and religion during the European Enlightenment and the development of religious education by American Jewry in the 20 th century United States. The paper also discusses some implications for the vitality and intergenerational robustness of religious communities. JEL Classification:Z12, J20, J15

The Earnings of American Jewish Men: Human Capital, Denomination and Religiosity

“…In the current denomination equation its coefficient implies an increase in earnings of 6 percent per year of Jewish Day Schooling (grades 8-12), which is statistically significant at the 10 percent level (coefficient 0.059, t-ratio 1.74). This suggests that full-time Jewish education may enhance earnings because of the complementarity of Jewish focused education and secular studies, perhaps because of the dual curricular program (general and Jewish studies), the longer school day, the emphasis on learning a second language (in this case Hebrew), or learning the analysis of texts (C. Chiswick 2006). Given the limitations of the data, however, it is not possible to control for potentially important determinants of day school education, such as higher innate ability or parental income.…”

“…As a result, studies that have identified Jews have tended to use indirect Jewish identifiers or, 1 For recent research regarding Jewish men and women, see, for example, B. Chiswick (1993Chiswick ( , 1999Chiswick ( , 2006, Burstein (2005), Lehrer (2006aLehrer ( , 2006b and Lieberson and Waters (1988), and the references therein.…”

“…Those identified as non-Jews in the NJPS constituted less than one percent of the sample of adult male respondents in the NJPS. They are not representative of the non-Jewish population of the U.S.6 For an analysis of the occupational distribution and self-employment of American Jewish men in the 1990 and 2000/01 NJPS in comparison to non-Jewish white men in the U.S. Census, see B Chiswick (2006)…”

The Earnings of American Jewish Men: Human Capital, Denomination, and Religiosity

“…This suggests that full-time Jewish education enhances earnings because of the complementarity of Jewish focused education and secular studies, perhaps because of the dual curricular program (general and Jewish studies), the longer school day, the emphasis on learning a second language (in this case Hebrew), or an emphasis on learning the analysis of texts (Chiswick 2006). Given the limitations of the data, however, it is not possible to control for potentially important determinants of day school education, such as a higher innate ability or parental income.…”

From Farmers to Merchants, Conversions and Diaspora: Human Capital and Jewish History

“…6. Works on the economics of religion related to our research are Iannaccone (1992), Berman (2000), Carlton and Weiss (2001), Chiswick (2006), and Rapoport and Weiss (forthcoming).…”