We provide a new identification strategy to analyse the implications of religious affiliation on unhealthful behaviour by focusing on the link between religiousness and smoking. Our quasi-experimental research design exploits the exogenous dramatic fall in religious affiliation that took place in East Germany after the post-war separation. Our conditional difference-in-differences estimates on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the period 1998–2006 indicate that individuals who are not affiliated to any religious denomination are consistently 13–19 percentage points more likely to smoke than are religious individuals. We interpret our results on the basis of a restraining effect of religious ethics on unhealthy behaviour, confirming the view that religion is a far-reaching vehicle for the enforcement of social norms.

“Thou Shalt not Smoke”: religion and smoking in a natural experiment of history

Nunziata, Luca;Toffolutti, Veronica
2019

Abstract

We provide a new identification strategy to analyse the implications of religious affiliation on unhealthful behaviour by focusing on the link between religiousness and smoking. Our quasi-experimental research design exploits the exogenous dramatic fall in religious affiliation that took place in East Germany after the post-war separation. Our conditional difference-in-differences estimates on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the period 1998–2006 indicate that individuals who are not affiliated to any religious denomination are consistently 13–19 percentage points more likely to smoke than are religious individuals. We interpret our results on the basis of a restraining effect of religious ethics on unhealthy behaviour, confirming the view that religion is a far-reaching vehicle for the enforcement of social norms.
2019
2019
Nunziata, Luca; Toffolutti, Veronica
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11565/4020978
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 7
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 4
social impact