 Contradictory effects of religiosity on subjective well-beingAyse Y. Evrensel Cogent Economics & Finance, 2018, vol. 6, issue 1, 1525115 Abstract: This article provides empirical evidence for the contradictory effects of religiosity on subjective well-being (SWB). While a number of empirical studies demonstrate that higher religiosity is associated with higher happiness at the level of the individual, the published lists of happiest countries indicate that these countries are not religious. In this article, the empirical analysis is conducted at the level of the individual using a respondent-based dataset with 347,947 subjects in 96 countries as well as at the level of the country using a cross-section dataset including the same 96 countries. The empirical results at the respondent level indicate that happier people are likely to be female, younger, and healthier with higher social status and a stronger sense of control over their lives. Additionally, higher religiosity is associated with higher levels of SWB. At the country level, while religiosity tends to lose its statistical significance or negatively affect SWB, institutional quality emerges as a positive covariate of SWB. However, the country-level results are sensitive to alternative measures of SWB and religiosity. Date: 2018 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:oaefxx:v:6:y:2018:i:1:p:1525115 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/23322039.2018.1525115 Access Statistics for this article Cogent Economics & Finance is currently edited by Steve Cook, Caroline Elliott, David McMillan, Duncan Watson and Xibin Zhang More articles in Cogent Economics & Finance from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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