Religion as a determinant of educational attainment: An economic perspective

Several studies have documented that religion plays an important role in the economic and demographic behavior of American families, ranging from marriage and divorce to fertility and female employment (see reviews of this literature in Lehrer 1996a; Iannaccone 1998). A large body of research has also explored the effects of religion on education, earnings, and other measures of socioeconomic attainment. Early studies consistently found that Jews have substantially higher levels of schooling and earnings than other groups (Chiswick 1983, 1988, 1993; Tomes 1983, 1985). Comparisons between Protestants and Catholics, however, yielded conflicting rankings (Featherman 1971; Greeley 1976, 1981; Roof 1979, 1981; Tomes 1985; Steen and Dubbink 1994). Partly because of this lack of clear patterns, the effects of religion on educational attainment have received little attention in recent years. Thus it is not surprising that, in an extensive survey of the determinants of children’s attainments, religion is conspicuously absent from the family background factors reviewed (Haveman and Wolfe 1995).