Un seguro contra la adversidad

La semana pasada en la Conferencia Anual de la Royal Economic Society (ver aquí) se presentó un paper que argumenta que las creencias religiosas reducen el impacto de eventos adversos. No es que exista una intervención divina que 'proteja' a los creyentes, sino que los creyentes se deprimen menos cuando atraviesan por malos momentos (por ejemplo, perder un trabajo).

Aquí un fragmento de la introducción:

Although religious belief in God as a stronghold, or ‘fortress’ in times of danger and misfortune is well known in the scriptures, this issue of insurance has surprisingly received only limited attention, especially in economics. There is some psychological evidence suggesting that religion can mediate the impact of traumatic life events. The bulk of this research, however, comes from small, non-representative samples and has focussed on the psychological aspects of these issues. In this paper we consider the specific role of various measures of religion as insurance against separation, divorce, widowhood, and unemployment using a large, nationally-representative dataset covering 21 European countries. We do so by seeing whether the life satisfaction of the religious is more or less affected by adverse life events than is the life satisfaction of the non-religious.

Aquí el paper.

Vía The Undercover Economist.