Does social context affect poverty? The role of religious congregations

Ambra Poggi

No 413, Working Papers from University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature that aims at identifying and measuring the impact of social context on individual-level outcomes. We focus on religious congregations (social groups with which Christian worshipers feel associated) and investigate congregation effects on individual poverty using U.S. data and a multilevel approach. In order to correct for selection effects, we model congregation choice using a multinomial logit model and subsequently incorporate correction components into the multilevel model of congregation effects. Our empirical results support the existence of congregation effects and, therefore, the importance of social context on individual poverty. We find that congregation size, recreational services, initiatives to integrate new members and behavior standards play important roles in shaping the probability that churchgoers experience poverty. Individual behavior (in terms of participation in the religious life of congregations) also matters. These finding are in line with the idea that congregations’ activities can foster social interactions and cooperation reducing individual probability of experiencing poverty.

Keywords: poverty; religion; social capital; multi-level analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 I32 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2019-06, Revised 2019-05-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mib:wpaper:413

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