Church attendance, faith and the allocation of time: evidence from Australia
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of church attendance and the formation of “religious human capital” using a Becker-inspired allocation-of-time framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Data derived from three waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey were used to estimate a reduced-form two-equation system where the endogenous variables were frequency of attendance at religious services and intensity of faith.
Findings
The results indicate that while the hourly wage rate accounts for some of the variation in the attendance and faith regressions (i.e. higher wages lead to lower levels of attendance and faith), “allocation of time” variables like working long hours also influence these dimensions. The findings also suggest that the decision to attend or not or to have any faith at all is generally independent from economic factors. However, once the decision to attend or to have faith is made, an individual’s wage influences the degree of attendance or faith to a significant level.
Originality/value
The study contributes to this embryonic body of empirical literature by providing – to the best of the authors’ knowledge – the first results for Australia.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper uses unit record data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either DSS or the Melbourne Institute.
Citation
Kortt, M.A., Steen, T. and Sinnewe, E. (2017), "Church attendance, faith and the allocation of time: evidence from Australia", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 44 No. 12, pp. 2112-2127. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-05-2016-0140
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited