Religious Prohibition and Sacrifice: Evidence from the Amish Restriction on High School Education

Liang Wang

JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, 2020, vol. 86, issue 3, 403-434

Abstract: The Amish collective objection to high school education and refusal to comply with compulsory schooling laws can be interpreted with a religious-club-good framework. According to the religious-club interpretation, the Amish use the restriction on secular education as a religious prohibition and sacrifice to improve the welfare of sect members. I exploit the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Wisconsin vs. Yoder, which exempts Amish children from compulsory high school education, as a policy shock to test several key predictions of the religious-club explanations. The evidence suggests that the successful restriction on high school education helped the Amish sect exclude individuals with low religious participation, lower members' shadow cost of time, and grow the sect through higher fertility.

Keywords: Amish; Compulsory schooling; Fertility; Prohibition; Religious club; Sacrifice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 I2 J1 J2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Religious prohibition and sacrifice: evidence from the Amish restriction on high school education (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:86:y:2020:i:3:p:403-434

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