IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dem/demres/v18y2008i8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Religious affiliation, religiosity, and male and female fertility

Author

Listed:
  • Li Zhang

    (China University of Political Science and Law)

Abstract

Religious studies of fertility typically focus on the effect of religious affiliation on fertility; the role of religiosity in determining fertility remains overlooked. Meanwhile, most studies focus on studying female fertility; whether religion and religiosity have significantly different impacts on men’s and women’s fertility rarely has been examined. To fill these gaps, this study uses data from the 2002 NSFG Cycle 6 on religious affiliation, religiosity, and children ever born (CEB) for both men and women to investigate the effects of religious affiliation and religiosity on male and female fertility. A series of hypotheses which aim to demonstrate the critical role of religiosity, particularly the importance of religious beliefs in people’s daily life in shaping people’s fertility behavior are tested. The findings show a shrinking pattern of fertility differentials among religious groups. However, religiosity, particularly religious beliefs, shows a substantially positive effect on fertility. The gender interaction terms are not significant which indicates that the effects of religion and religiosity on fertility do not vary by gender.

Suggested Citation

  • Li Zhang, 2008. "Religious affiliation, religiosity, and male and female fertility," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 18(8), pages 233-262.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:18:y:2008:i:8
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2008.18.8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol18/8/18-8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/DemRes.2008.18.8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher G. Ellison & Samuel Echevarría & Brad Smith, 2005. "Religion and Abortion Attitudes Among U.S. Hispanics: Findings from the 1990 Latino National Political Survey," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(1), pages 192-208, March.
    2. Susan Janssen & Robert Hauser, 1981. "Religion, socialization, and fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 18(4), pages 511-528, November.
    3. Bledsoe, Caroline & Lerner, Susana & Guyer, Jane (ed.), 2000. "Fertility and the Male Life Cycle in the Era of Fertility Decline," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294443, Decembrie.
    4. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth across Countries," Scholarly Articles 3708464, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    5. Evelyn L. Lehrer, 2004. "Religion as a Determinant of Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(4), pages 707-726, December.
    6. Gordon Jong, 1965. "Religious fundamentalism, socio-economic status, and fertility attitudes in the southern appalachians," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 2(1), pages 540-548, March.
    7. Robert J. Barro & Rachel McCleary, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 9682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cristian C. Popescu & Andrei Maxim & Laura Diaconu (Maxim), 2019. "Is The Religious Orientation A Determinant Of The Entrepreneurial Intentions? A Study On The Romanian Students," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 24, pages 113-130, December.
    2. Rietveld, C.A. & van Burg, E., 2013. "Religious beliefs and entrepreneurship among Dutch protestants," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2013-015-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    3. Stergios Leventis & Emmanouil Dedoulis & Omneya Abdelsalam, 2018. "The Impact of Religiosity on Audit Pricing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 53-78, March.
    4. Zizi Goschin & Monica Roman, 2011. "Religious Affiliation And Economic Performance Of Romanian Emigrants. An Empirical Approach," ERSA conference papers ersa11p686, European Regional Science Association.
    5. David de la Croix & Clara Delavallade, 2018. "Religions, Fertility, And Growth In Southeast Asia," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 907-946, May.
    6. Permani, Risti, 2011. "The presence of religious organisations, religious attendance and earnings: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 247-258, May.
    7. Boahen, Eric & Mamatzakis, Emmanuel, 2016. "Do Religion, Corporate Governance and BIG 4 Audit Interactions Affect Misclassification?," MPRA Paper 76804, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Hohyun Kim & Kyoung T. Kim & Seung H. Han, 2021. "Religious differences and households' investment decisions," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(4), pages 753-788, December.
    9. Abdelsalam, Omneya & Dimitropoulos, Panagiotis & Elnahass, Marwa & Leventis, Stergios, 2016. "Earnings management behaviors under different monitoring mechanisms: The case of Islamic and conventional banks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(S), pages 155-173.
    10. Tu, Qin & Bulte, Erwin & Tan, Shuhao, 2011. "Religiosity and economic performance: Micro-econometric evidence from Tibetan area," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 55-63, March.
    11. Cai, Ye & Kim, Yongtae & Li, Siqi & Pan, Carrie, 2019. "Tone at the top: CEOs’ religious beliefs and earnings management," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 195-213.
    12. Alex Annan Abakah, 2020. "Local religious beliefs and municipal bond market outcomes," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 447-471, June.
    13. Lewis Davis & Jia Gao, 2020. "Preferences or Patriarchy: Why Do Religious Women Work Less?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 287-310, January.
    14. Lasha Lanchava, 2014. "Does Religious Activity Affect Childbearing Decisions? The Case of Georgia," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp521, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    15. Seth W. Norton & Annette Tomal, 2009. "Religion and Female Educational Attainment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(5), pages 961-986, August.
    16. Mavisakalyan, Astghik & Tarverdi, Yashar & Weber, Clas, 2020. "Paradise Postponed: Future Tense and Religiosity," GLO Discussion Paper Series 500, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Mathieu Gomes & Sylvain Marsat & Jonathan Peillex & Guillaume Pijourlet, 2023. "Does religiosity influence corporate greenwashing behavior?," Papers 2312.14515, arXiv.org.
    18. Audretsch, David B. & Bönte, Werner & Tamvada, Jagannadha Pawan, 2013. "Religion, social class, and entrepreneurial choice," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 774-789.
    19. Lo Turco, Alessia & Maggioni, Daniela, 2018. "Effects of Islamic religiosity on bilateral trust in trade: The case of Turkish exports," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 947-965.
    20. I. Hakan Yetkiner, 2006. "Saglik ile Buyume," Ege Academic Review, Ege University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, vol. 6(2), pages 83-91.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fertility; religion; interaction effect; male fertility; religious affiliation; religiosity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:18:y:2008:i:8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editorial Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.