Pew Study on the Gender Gap in Religion

The Pew Research Center has just published on its website a 100+ page report titled "The Gender Gap in Religion Around the World."  You can download the complete report in pdf here and also view the overview here.

Some of the findings include:

1. In general around the world, women are more likely than men to affiliate with a religion.  Around the world, 83.4% of women report religious affiliation, while 79.9% of men report affiliation.  There are no countries in which men are more religiously affiliated than women.
2. Gender differences in worship attendance vary across religious groups.  Among Christians, women attend more often, but men attend more often among Muslims and Orthodox Jews.
3. In general, women report praying daily at higher rates than men.  Only in Israel does a higher proportion of men than women report praying daily.
4. Religion is equally or more important to women than men in most countries.  Only in Israel and Mozambique do men report higher rates of religion being important.
5. Women and men about equally likely to believe in heaven, hell, and angels.  There are some differences across countries.
6. The gender gap is wide in the United States, and it is wider in the U.S. than in Canada and the U.K.  Religiosity is also higher on average for both men and women in the U.S. than in Canada and the U.K.
7. The gender gap in religion appears to be correlated with labor force participation.  Women that work report lower levels of religiosity than women that do not work, and the gender gap is smaller in countries where the labor force participation gap between men and women is also smaller.
8. However, even after controlling for labor force participation, there is still a gender gap.  Combining this point with point 7 above lends support to the conclusion that the gender gap in religion is due to both "nature" and "nurture."

Blue Laws for Alcohol in Minnesota

A guest post from TA Cody Nehiba:

Blue laws restrict various activities on certain days of the week.  Generally, they restrict secular activities on a particular religions day of worship.  As previously discussed in sections, Minnesota is one of twelve states that restrict the sale of alcohol on Sundays.  This ban on Sunday sales attempts to reduce the value of secular activities, and increase the number of people attending churches on Sunday.  Many in Minnesota want these blue laws to be repealed, but they're finding the strongest supporters of the law aren't religious leaders, they're actually liquor store owners.  These business owners believe if they are open seven days a week they will end up losing money as the demand for alcohol would remain relatively unchanged.    See this article from 2014.

Do you think that blue laws should be repealed?  They may have been created with favoritism towards a particular religion in mind, but they have actually helped some secular businesses.

Do you think these blue laws increase church attendance in Minnesota? 

Note that the article is a couple years old.  A law was more recently passed in MN that partially repealed the ban on Sunday alcohol sales.  Craft breweries are now allowed to sell "Growlers" on Sundays.

The Economics of Celibate Catholic Priesthood

With few exceptions, Catholic priests are to live (unmarried) celibate lives, however Pope Francis is interested in changing this policy.  See this article here.  Although this celibacy restriction has been enforced for over a thousand years, he considers it not a part of official church doctrine.

We can consider this policy from an economics perspective, i.e., we can consider how the policy affects the decisions made by clergy and non-clergy.  Indeed, there are many dimensions to this policy that influence the effectiveness of clergy and the operations of the Catholic Church.  Here are a few.

1.  Opportunity cost of time.  Being a good spouse and parent requires time and energy, thus increasing the opportunity cost of other activities.  A priest without such family obligations thus has a lower opportunity cost of devoting more time and attention to religious responsibilities.  The celibacy restriction thus enables the priest to carry out more and a larger number of clergy responsibilities in the service of church members.

Conclusion:  good for the church.

2.  Screening into the priesthood.  Because having a family is highly desirable for many people, the celibacy restriction imposes a high cost for priests, thus acting as a screening mechanism into the priesthood.  Only those who are exceptionally committed a life of priestly service are likely to be willing to voluntarily accept the restriction.  The restriction should thus lead to relatively more committed clergy than otherwise as less committed persons would not enter the priesthood.  Presumably, having highly committed clergy is good for the church.

However, there are many men who might be quite effective priests as well as effective husbands and fathers.  These men will not be allowed to be priests, and their services will be missed.  While the commitment of the those that enter the priesthood will be high, there are some with high commitment who also tremendously value the experience of family life that will not enter the priesthood.  If being an effective priest depends not just on commitment but on having other character traits that might be correlated with a desire to have a family (e.g., compassion, trust, etc.), then many men who would excellent priests--even better than the average actual priest--might never become priests.

The above discussion clearly applies to heterosexual men considering the priesthood, but it is more complicated for gay men.  Because gay marriage has not been a legal option until only until recently (and only in some parts of the world), the cost of the celibacy restriction would have been relatively lower for gays considering the priesthood than for straights considering the priesthood because the value of heterosexual marriage was lower for them.  This suggests that the proportion of men choosing the priesthood that are gay might be higher than the proportion of gay men in the rest of the population.  Data on this matter are difficult to obtain, but some people have claimed this to be true.  If you think having gay clergy is bad given the church's opposition to homosexuality, then differential screening on sexual preferences would be bad.  However, you might instead believe that the priesthood may be a noble lifestyle for religiously committed gay men who seek to abide the church's teachings against homosexuality while still making a contribution in their religious communities.

Conclusion:  unclear, opinions may differ.

3.  Priestly human capital.  As stated in #1 above, unmarried priests will devote more time to clergy responsibilities, and they can also develop more time developing the skills and talents that would enable them to be effective clergy.  For example, they can develop more scriptural knowledge, spend more time on directed learning for effective pastoral care, and so on.  This is true for many years after they first became priests.  However, it is also reasonable to suppose that marriage and parenting provide experiences and the development of other character traits that can make clergy more effective.  If some of these are only obtainable via the intense social relationships found inside families, then unmarried priests will have diminished capabilities relative to married priests because the unmarried priests will not develop those traits that could have only been developed within family settings.

Conclusion;  unclear.

4.  Credible signals of commitment.  As stated in #2 above, celibacy is extremely costly for many men.  Moreover, this cost is publicly known because the celibacy restriction is publicly known.  Those that enter the priesthood are, by their decision, sending a public signal to others that their commitment is very high.  This public signal enhances the credibility of priests because church members can be confident in the priests' commitment. Church members may be more inclined to trust priests when they are confident in their priests' commitment.  This may lead them to participate more at church or be more willing to engage their local priests.

Conclusion:  good.

As we should expect from an economic perspective, the celibacy restriction is neither unambiguously good nor unambiguously bad.  Even if the policy is considered by the church to be more good than bad overall, it is a policy that still comes with a cost.

Notice as well that the costs and benefits of the celibacy policy change over time.  For example, the ability for gay men to legally marry will raise the cost of entering the priesthood for religiously committed gay men, which should decrease the proportion of gay men that enter the priesthood.  Of course, celibacy is costly for all men, and it might not be surprising to learn that the Catholic church has experienced a decline in the number of priests over the last many decades despite growth in the number of Catholics. The church has adapted by having an increasing amount of ecclesiastical duties undertaken by deacons and other lay ministers that can be married.  Whether Pope Francis will remove or modify the policy is yet to be determined, but if he does we may reasonably infer that he does so because he believes the costs of the policy have become too high.

Religious Views on High School Athletic Uniforms

Religion appears in many places, including government and the courts.  Legislation in the state of Georgia provides an interesting example--see here.  High school athletes are typically not allowed to personalize their uniforms, however, should they be allowed to do so, a new bill under consideration by the state legislature would ensure that students would not be discriminated against for personalizing their uniforms in religious ways.  We see how religion and religious expression is not allowed without any type of constraint.  Religious persons and groups frequently use legal means to assert rights or deny the rights of others.  Much of this occurs without a lot of media attention, but it nonetheless is out there and impacts the way people live their religious lives.

The Pope's Twitter Account Revisited

Back in December 2012, Pope Benedict XVI was the first pope to open a Twitter account.  See my original post on this here.

Pope Francis, not to be outdone, also created a Twitter account.  Take a look at it here;  scroll down and look at his last posts of the last few months.  What do you notice?  Why would Pope Francis take the time out of his busy schedule to maintain an active Twitter account?  Can you use our economic approach to religion to think meaningfully about the pope's Twitter usage?  Does the notion of religious capital provide any insight?

(OK, it is possible that one of the pope's assistants does the actual posting with some input from the pope, but let us just assume that the pope is actually choosing the content).

Is Belief in the Supernatural Natural?

Evolutionary biologist/political scientist Dominic Johnson argues that the answer is yes, as explained in this article in the New Statesman.

Johnson believes that the need to find a more-than-natural meaning in natural events is universal – “a ubiquitous phenomenon of human nature” – and performs a vital role in maintaining order in society. Extending far beyond cultures shaped by monotheism, it “spans cultures across the globe and every historical period, from indigenous tribal societies . . . to modern world religions – and includes atheists, too”.

[S]ome kind of moral order beyond any human agency seems to be demanded by the human mind, and this sense that our actions are overseen and judged from beyond the natural world serves a definite evolutionary role. Belief in supernatural reward and punishment promotes social co-operation in a way nothing else can match. The belief that we live under some kind of supernatural guidance is not a relic of superstition that might some day be left behind but an evolutionary adaptation that goes with being human.

Johnson is not the first but rather just the latest to make this argument.  Read the article to understand how belief in the supernatural may provide evolutionary advantages.  The argument is interesting in its own right, but it is also relevant to our class discussion on secularization later in the quarter.  If belief in the supernatural is, well, natural, then perhaps there will be limits to the secularization that has been predicted for centuries.

Exorcising Computer Virus

That is one of the services offered by Wiccan witch Joey Talley.  Read this article at the Worldwide Religious News site to learn of her techniques.  Here is an excerpt from the article.

"When I go into the room where somebody’s computer is, I go in fresh, I step in like a fresh sheet, and I’m open to feel what’s going on with the computer."

Then I performed a vanishing ceremony. I used a black bowl with a magnet and water to draw [the virus] out. Then I saged the whole computer to chase the negativity back into the bowl, and then I flushed that down the toilet. After this I did a purification ceremony. Then I made a protection spell out of chloride, amethyst, and jet. I left these on the computer at the base where she works.

Did the virus clear out immediately once you were finished?

Yes, it cleared out immediately. They usually do.

Dowsing for Gold

Here is a scene from the reality show Bearing Sea Gold on the Discovery channel in which one of the characters in the show dowses to find gold.  Dowsing is done to find water, gold or other minerals, and more.  In this video the person use two metal rods.

A few things stand out.  First, deckhand Robbi Wade said, "People might think I'm crazy for doing this, but it don't bother me one way or another if they think I'm crazy or not as long as I get some gold."  He also said "I believe in it."  This is a rational chooser who is clearly results oriented.

Second, he also gave an explanation that it works via magnetism but did not provide much more details.  He does not believe it is working through the power of a supernatural being, so it is not religion according to Stark and Finke's definition in Acts of Faith.  Stark and Finke might call it magic, but his reference to magnetism suggests that he thinks dowsing works via natural rather than supernatural means.  It is not clear that the supernatural term applies very well here.

Third, that there is clear Christian imagery (a Christian cross at minute 3:03) on the ship suggests that they have no problem mixing religion with the practice of dowsing.  This may not be surprising given that they seem to view dowsing as working through natural means.  It is just a means of finding gold that they believe works for them.  It is also relatively inexpensive as you just need the two metal rods and some practice.  They do it themselves rather than hiring a professional dowser.  In their minds it is merely a cost-effect way to find the gold.

And in case you were wondering, yes, you can hire dowsers.  Maybe someone from the American Society of Dowsers.