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

Evelyn Lehrer ()

No 1390, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper critically reviews and synthesizes research on the role of religion on various aspects of the economic and demographic behavior of individuals and families in the United States, including the choice of marital partner, union formation and dissolution, fertility, female time allocation, education, wages, and wealth. Using a theoretical framework based on Gary Becker’s contributions to the economics of the family, religious affiliation is seen to affect these outcomes because it has an impact on the costs and benefits of many interrelated decisions that people make over the life cycle. In addition, for behaviors that pertain to married couple households, affiliation matters because it is a complementary trait within the context of marriage. Religiosity, another dimension of religion, also affects economic and demographic outcomes, partly because it accentuates differences by religious affiliation, partly because of the generally beneficial effects that religious involvement has on health and well-being.

Keywords: education; female employment; marriage; demography; religion; fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 J2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2004-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (102)

Published - published in: Population and Development Review, 2004, 30 (4), 707-726

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1390.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Religion as a Determinant of Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1390

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().