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Religious Participation and Risky Health Behaviors among Adolescents

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Author Info
Jennifer M. Mellor () (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)
Beth A. Freeborn () (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)

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Abstract

Previous studies have shown that adolescent religious participation is negatively associated with risky health behaviors like cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and illicit drug use. One explanation for these findings is that religion directly reduces risky behaviors because churches provide youths with moral guidance or with strong social networks that reinforce social norms. An alternative explanation is that both religious participation and risky health behaviors are driven by some common unobserved individual trait. We use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and implement an instrumental variables approach to identify the effect of religious participation on smoking, binge drinking and marijuana use. Following Gruber (2005), we use a county-level measure of religious market density as an instrument. Religious market density has a strong positive association on adolescent religious participation, but not on secular measures of social capital. Upon accounting for unobserved heterogeneity, we find that religious participation continues to have a negative effect on illicit drug use.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Department of Economics, College of William and Mary in its series Working Papers with number 86.

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Length: 26 pages
Date of creation: 20 Jul 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cwm:wpaper:86

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Web page: http://www.wm.edu/economics/
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Related research
Keywords: Substance Abuse; Religion; Tobacco; Youth;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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  1. Economic Logic blog
References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Philip DeCicca & Donald Kenkel & Alan Mathios, 2002. "Putting Out the Fires: Will Higher Taxes Reduce the Onset of Youth Smoking?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 144-169, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Rajeev Dehejia & Thomas DeLeire & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Joshua Mitchell, 2007. "The Role of Religious and Social Organizations in the Lives of Disadvantaged Youth," NBER Chapters, in: The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective, pages 237-274 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Hana Ross & Frank J. Chaloupka, 2003. "The effect of cigarette prices on youth smoking," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(3), pages 217-230. [Downloadable!]
  4. Brown, Sarah & Taylor, Karl, 2007. "Religion and education: Evidence from the National Child Development Study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 439-460, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Powell, Lisa M. & Tauras, John A. & Ross, Hana, 2005. "The importance of peer effects, cigarette prices and tobacco control policies for youth smoking behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 950-968, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
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  7. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Enhanced routines for instrumental variables/GMM estimation and testing," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 667, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 05 Sep 2007. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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