Religion and earnings: evidence from the NLS Youth Cohort

Abstract

Does religious and denominational background still affect earnings and human capital investment? Several earlier studies suggest that they do, but all of these previous studies were conducted on data from the 1970s and early 1980s. Examines religious background and human capital formation for a sample of males from the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort (1991). Provides survey information that makes it possible to control better the many components of family background in order to isolate the impact of religion and denomination. Uses the estimation of human capital earnings functions similar to Tomes’ (1984) method. Finds that men raised as Catholics or Jews have higher incomes than men raised as Protestants, other things being held equal. When the dependent variable used for the analysis is the logarithm of hourly wages, men raised either as Catholics or Jews were also found to have higher wages. Contains results from analyses of men within various Protestant denominations, as well as results for different racial and ethnic groups.

Upward Wealth Mobility: Exploring the Roman Catholic Advantage

“…There is some evidence that Catholics are community-oriented (Greeley 1989;Tropman 2002), and they may be relatively more likely to volunteer and otherwise be generous (Nelson and Greene 2003;Regnerus, Smith and Sikkink 1998). Yet there is little evidence that tithing reduces their disposable income in a way that would slow wealth accumulation (Steen 1996 5 The NLS-Y includes detailed information about family background, transitions to adulthood and adult traits. It also contains detailed religious affiliation data and a comprehensive series of asset and debt questions that were added in 1985 when the youngest respondents were age 20.…”

Conservative Protestants and Wealth: How Religion Perpetuates Asset Poverty

“…Moreover, because they tend to value a relatively traditional division of labor (Ellison and Bartkowski 2002;Gallagher and Smith 1999), CP women participate in paid work outside the home at low rates, particularly when their children are young (Lehrer 1995). Single-earner households-typically households in which the adult female is not employed outside the home-tend to have low income and limited resources available to save (Steen 1996). For these reasons, I expect that early fertility, large family size, and low rates of female labor force participation reduce wealth for CPs.…”

“…9 I controlled for total household income (prior year, logged) from sources other than public assistance, because religion affects income (Steen 1996). 10 To measure socioeconomic class, I included three variables: (1) a measure of total public assistance income (logged) received in the prior year, (2) a measure of whether the respondent's occupation in the prior year was categorized as manual labor (laborer) using detailed census occupation codes, and (3) a dichotomous indicator of rural residence in the prior year.…”

Religion and Inequality: The Role of Status Attainment and Social Balance Processes

“…However, although contemporary research is empirically rich, it has paid relatively little attention to the causal processes linking religion and material outcomes. Modern data provide powerful evidence that religion affects education for adults (Chiswick 1988;Darnell and Sherkat 1997;Lehrer 1999bLehrer , 2004 and adolescents (Muller and Ellison 2001;Sherkat and Darnell 1999), gender roles in the home (Ellison and Bartkowski 2002;Read 2004) and in the labor market (Lehrer 1999a(Lehrer , 2000Sherkat and Darnell 1999), fertility and family formation (Glass and Jacobs 2005;Lehrer 1996bLehrer , 1996cMcQuillan 2004), wages (Keister 2010;Smith and Faris 2005;Steen 1996;Wilder and Walters 1998), work and occupational outcomes (Smith and Faris 2005), and saving behavior and wealth (Crowe 2008;Keister 2003Keister , 2007Keister , 2008. Researchers have understandably taken advantage of modern data and methods to provide careful empirical support for key relationships that eluded prior generations of scholars.…”