Does Religiosity Affect Multidimensional Poverty? Evidence from World Values Survey (2010-2014)

Abstract

Based on macro-level observations that high religiosity is associated with lower economic growth, it is generally assumed that religiosity contributes to poverty. However, this conjecture may not be true because religion provides motivation to the poor, encourages cooperation in society, and influences preferences and habits in ways that could help reduce poverty. The present paper uses data from World Values Survey (WVS) covering 52 countries and 74,042 individuals, to construct a measure of multidimensional poverty based on deprivation counting approach and a measure of religiosity based on faith deprivation. It then addresses three questions: (a) Is religiosity similar among multidimensional-poor and non-poor? (b) Are there any differences in dimensions of deprivations among high religiosity and low religiosity people? (c) What is the impact of religiosity on multidimensional poverty? It finds that higher religiosity is associated with lower multidimensional poverty; faith-poor are more deprived in their protections of intellect and posterity than protections of life and wealth. A decrease in religiosity increases multidimensional poverty. An implication of the study is that a religious society would be less poor even if its economic growth is slow.