Acts of God? Religiosity and Natural Disasters Across Subnational World Districts

Jeanet Bentzen

No 15-06, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: Religiosity affects everything from fertility and health to labor force participation and productivity. But why are some societies more religious than others? To answer this question, I rely on the religious coping theory, which states that many individuals draw on their religious beliefs to understand and deal with adverse life events. Combining subnational district level data on values across the globe from the World Values Survey with spatial data on natural disasters, I find that individuals become more religious when their district was hit recently by an earthquake. And further, I find that this short-term effect co-exists with a long-term impact: Using data on children of immigrants in Europe, I document that high religiosity levels evolve in high earthquake risk areas, and are passed on across generations to individuals no longer living in these areas. The impact is global: earthquakes increase religiosity both within Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, and within all continents. I document that the results are consistent with the literature on religious coping and inconsistent with alternative theories such as insurance or selection.

Keywords: Religiosity; Natural disasters; Religious coping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N30 Q54 R10 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66 pages
Date: 2015-04-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Acts of God? Religiosity and Natural Disasters Across Subnational World Districts (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1506

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