engleski

The relative importance of religious denominations for life satisfaction

This paper estimates the importance of religious denomination (we differ between Christians, Muslims, Chinese Universists, Buddhists, Hindus, Non-religious and others) for life satisfaction across countries, after controlling for a set of quality of life variables. We use a sample of 144 countries, covering approximately 96 percent of world population. Our results indicate that religion does have a significant influence on life satisfaction. It was shown that pertaining to one of the following denominations: Christian, Muslim or Hindu significantly influences satisfaction and that these categories are more satisfied with their lives than the reference category. Separating our sample even further, the results show that Catholics are the most satisfied group among Christians, and Sunnis among Muslims. We take the analysis one step further and examine the relative importance of the religions with most adherents on life satisfaction. Our results indicate that Christians are the most satisfied, followed by the Muslim and Hindu.

Life satisfaction; religious denomination; relative importance

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