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Tag Archives: Religion
Religious Identity and Climate-Sustainable Behavior
by Zixin “Finnie” Zhao
Abstract
What motivates individual action on climate change? The study focuses on the potential influence of religious identities. It employs a laboratory experiment to investigate how priming religious identity affects individuals’ donation behaviors to climate versus non-climate charities in a dictator game setting. In contrast with expectations, this study finds no significant evidence that an increase in religious identity salience influences religious individuals’ donation to climate, nor does it affect overall charitable donation behaviors, when demographic factors and perceptions about charity are controlled. Although failing to establish a causal relationship between religious identity and climate sustainable behavior or a linkage between religious identity and pro-social behavior, this research marks an innovative attempt to use experimental economics methodology to study factors that shape individual responses to the global climate challenge.
Professor Rachel Kranton, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C91; D64; Q54; Z12
The Effects of Religion and Patriarchal Norms on Female Labor Force Participation
by Chidinma Hannah Nnoromele
Abstract
This paper provides an empirical study of the influence of religion, religiosity, and patriarchal norms on female labor force participation across 40 countries. Using micro-level data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2012: “Family and Changing Gender Roles IV and macro-level data from World Bank Group’s Women, Business, and the Law 2012 database, the study examines religious and patriarchal aspects that influence female labor force participation among working women, ages 15 to 64. The analysis supports the hypothesis that more religious and socially conservative women are less likely to have paid work. However, the analysis, which examines ten different religions, finds that the specific religion a woman practices, excluding the cultural religions (Judaism and Hinduism), does not influence female labor force participation when controlling for national and environmental cultural factors. This suggests that a country’s institutions, socio-political context, and geographic cultural heritage matter in the way that religiosity is expressed in women’s economic participation.
Professor Michael Munger, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: J1, D19, J21, J22
The Senegalese Experience: Rethinking Fertility Theory for Highly Religious Societies
by Corinne S. Low
Abstract
Despite improvements, traditional fertility theory still remains unprepared to cope with developing countries, such as Senegal, where deep religious beliefs dictate a passive acceptance of natural fertility. Because of an unwillingness to use modern contraception, factors that can reduce fertility in these societies will be primarily factors that influence natural fertility. Particularly, my study finds that age at first marriage, cultural taboos against sex while breastfeeding, living with extended families, and extended periods of breastfeeding can all reduce family size. Education is found to increase fertility at low levels because it increases fecundity, but reduce fertility at higher levels. It also acts through a multitude of indirect pathways, clearly modeled for the first time in this paper.
Professor Connel Fullenkamp, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: J13, N97, Z12
