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Religiosity and Subjective Wellbeing in Canada

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Abstract

Using the Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey, I explore how religiosity associates with self-reported levels of wellbeing. The overall association of religious intensity with subjective wellbeing is found to be statistically significant, positive and small. When the impact is allowed to vary by religious group, it appears that Catholics and Protestants are very similar in how religiosity impacts their subjective wellbeing; the association is statistically significantly stronger for Canadian Muslims; and Canadian Jews are the closest group to religious nones. Surprisingly, among different dimensions of religious commitment, the intensity of religious belief is found to be the driver of the overall positive association, across religious groups. Finally, when Canadian population is divided into linguistic groups, religious involvement emerges as a negative predictor of French Canadians’ subjective wellbeing.

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Notes

  1. Sander (2002) maps the predetermined General Social Survey categories to a quantitative measure as follows: never equals 0; less than once a year equals 0.5; about once or twice a year equals 1; several times a year equals 3; about once a month equals 12; two to three times per month equals 30; nearly every week equals 40; and every week or more often equals 52. After rescaling the responses to these questions, they are recalibrated to vary between 0 and 5.

  2. Dividing a Probit coefficient by 3 provides an approximation for its associated marginal probability. If the dependent variable is not a dummy, e.g. Importance of Religion, the reported marginal effect is evaluated for the sample mean (sample mean × marginal probability).

  3. The latest manifestation of this difference was the proposition of the Québec Charter of Values, a provincial bill introduced by the governing Parti Québécois in 2013. It intended to define the limits of religious reasonable accommodation in Québec. There was much controversy in Québec and elsewhere about the Charter, especially its proposed prohibition of public sector employees from wearing or displaying “conspicuous” religious symbols. According to the bill, relatively discreet items such as a finger ring, earring or small pendants bearing a religious symbol would be allowed, while more obvious items such as a kippah, turban, head scarf, and larger crosses and religious pendants would be prohibited. The bill died on the order paper as of March 5, 2014 (see O'Neill et al. 2015).

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  1. Department of Economics, Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Maryam Dilmaghani

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Dilmaghani, M. Religiosity and Subjective Wellbeing in Canada. J Happiness Stud 19, 629–647 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-016-9837-7

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