Thursday, March 27, 2008

Stupid AND Poor.

Here's something interesting. Religious people, on average, are less wealthy than non-religious folks. Probably has something to do with them not being as smart as rational people, I would have thought. Let's face it, if you believe in a magical malevolent sky fairy, I'm sure it's pretty easy to be taken in by pretty much any old scam, I would think.

The study examines why conservative Protestants are dramatically overrepresented at the bottom of the U.S. wealth distribution and concludes that the cultural understandings that accompany conservative Protestant beliefs influence wealth ownership directly and indirectly.
But there is a reason for it, it seems. According to Lisa A. Keister, Duke professor of sociology and author of “Conservative Protestants and Wealth: How Religion Perpetuates Asset Poverty,” published in the March issue of the American Journal of Sociology,
The direct influence stems from conservative Protestants’ unique approach to finances -- in particular the belief that people are managers of God’s money and excess accumulation of wealth should be avoided.
In addition, conservative Protestants have tended to be less educated and have large families beginning at younger ages; and fewer conservative Protestant women work, all of which indirectly contribute to slow asset accumulation.
A couple of the reasons made me laugh out loud. Apparently, conservative christians tend to ask for
...Divine advice, advice from clergy and other religious advice about money and work...More conservative Protestants than other people surveyed are likely to pray about financial decisions, for example.
Clearly, it's not helping. Let's be real here, you can't trust your kid with a priest, so why would you trust him on money matters also? And, not surprisingly, low educational attainment is a factor too:
Education is one of the strongest predictors of wealth, and conservative Protestants have significantly less education than members of other faiths.
So there you go. Christians: Stupid and poor.

3 comments:

Angry Lab Rat said...

I have a buddy I went to college with. He scored 90th percentile on the SAT, was near the top of his class with an undergrad in economics, then went on to do well in law school. But something happened along the way. When our third year of undergrad began, I was shocked to find that this well-educated (but rural and poor) boy had come back from summer vacation in the Ozarks of Arkansas as a born-again Pentacostal.

He moved to Tulsa (where he got his law degree, but then left law to become a computer programmer), married the preacher's daughter, and quickly started a staunch conservative family where the wife stayed home and had as many kids as they could. The only reason they stopped at two was because she nearly died having them.

It leaves me scratching my head. I grew up in the South and saw all sorts of stupid, poor religious types. But this guy wasn't stupid by any means. Nor poor (now). I would characterize him as lower middle class now.

He is one of the few exceptions (I know a few others), but generally the study agrees with my observations as well. When you are willing to take on *faith* the meaning of the universe and all of the environment around you (by the "sky fairy"), then you are more likely to take more important things on faith as well, like your pocketbook.

But wouldn't social theory suggest that, over decades, there would be fewer and fewer of these types as people supposedly learn from the mistakes of their parents? There must be some sort of negative feedback loop at work that creates them from prosperous, less gullible families.

DB said...

They clearly didn't count the countless preachers, pastor's, and whatever else they call themselves who live in mansions driving Mercedes'. And if so, they must have brought the average up a lot. So sad.

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