Religiosity and life satisfaction: evidence from the Russian data

ABSTRACT

Does religiosity make people happy? Many studies document positive associations between religiosity and various forms of subjective well-being. This holds true for general life satisfaction as well, both under normal economic conditions and in the case of economic shocks. However, both life satisfaction and religiosity may be correlated with unobserved individual and household traits or unobserved life shocks, which can relate to reverse causality. These facts result in endogeneity problems and make ordinary least square estimates biased. Endogeneity problems refer to situations in which an explanatory variable is correlated with the error term. They usually happen when an unobserved or omitted variable affects both independent and dependent variables. In this study, we employed two methods to avoid possible endogeneity issues: fixed effects and instrumental variable estimations. Using data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) and different econometric models, we document positive associations between religiosity and life satisfaction. In particular, fixed effect and instrumental variable regressions provide evidence for a positive effect of religiosity.

KEYWORDS:

• Life satisfaction
• religiosity
• Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE)
• endogeneity

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Religion for their useful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to the participants of the XIX International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development (April 2018) and of the regular workshops at the HSE Center of Institutional Studies of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. In particular, we emphasise comments and suggestions received from John Nye, Maria Yudkevich, and Maria Semenova. Maksym Bryukhanov would like to thank Valentin Vandyshev for the helpful philosophical insights about happiness and religion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In general, the term ‘endogeneity’ captures omitted variable bias, measurement error, and simultaneity (Wooldridge 2010, 54–55). If endogeneity is present, empirical estimates are biased.

2. This question is very close to the formulation “To what extent do you consider yourself a religious person?”, used in other studies of religiosity (Idler et al. 2003; LaBouff et al. 2012; Tartaro, Luecken, and Gunn 2005; Vallurupalli et al. 2012; WHOQOL-SRPB Group 2006).

3. This is calculated as follows: for example, in a family consisting of 3 individuals (A, B, C), individuals indicate the value of life satisfaction: A indicates 4, B indicates 3, C indicates 1. Thus, for A, the average life satisfaction of the other family members (B and C) equals (3 + 1): 2 = 2.

4. In panel data regressions, we deflated income indicators. The base year is 2011. In instrumental variable regressions, income was measured using prices valid in 2003.

5. According to the methodology of the RLMS-HSE, PSU is a primary sample unit (see http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/rlms-hse/data/faq, accessed 9 April 2021).

6. A number of respondents identified as ‘Orthodox’ but claimed that they did not believe in God.

7. Estimations were done using statistical software (STATA 13), with the option ‘robust’ for computing standard errors.

8. We also estimated panel regressions using the unbalanced panel; all results remained almost unchanged. More specifically, in the fixed effect model, the regression coefficient of religiosity effect = 0.0444 (p < 0.01, number of observations = 64443). For reasons of space we do not report results here, but they are available upon request.

9. Number of people identifying as ‘Orthodox’ but claiming they do not believe in God.

10. Detailed regression outputs are available upon request.

11. This is a Soviet myth about soldiers who stopped German troops during the Battle of Moscow. Later Soviet authorities recognized that the story was a fabrication. Russian authorities have made attempts to restore this legend (Shteynman 2016, 101, 107–109).

Additional information

Funding

This article was prepared within the framework of the HSE University Basic Research Program and funded by the Russian Academic Excellence Project “5-100”.

Notes on contributors

Maksym Bryukhanov

Maksym Bryukhanov is a junior research fellow at the Centre for Institutional Studies of the Higher School of Economics (Moscow). His current interdisciplinary research is devoted to the problems of well-being, philosophy, religion, institutional economics, and sustainable development.

Igor Fedotenkov

Igor Fedotenkov is a policy analyst at the DG Joint Research Centre (European Commission). This article was written during his work for the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. His current research focuses on the welfare state and productivity modelling from micro- and macro-economic perspectives. His areas of research include sociology, gender equality, religion, and happiness studies.

CORRESPONDENCE: Igor Fedotenkov, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Rue du Champ de Mars 21, CDMA 401, 1049 Brussels, Belgium.