The role of religious and social organizations in the lives of disadvantaged youth
By: Rajeev Dehejia ... [et al.].
Series: Faculty research working papers series -- RWP07-037; Faculty research working paper series -- RWP07-037
Publisher: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 33
Subjects: Social participation; Religious institutions; Membership; Youth with social disabilities; Econometric models
Description: This paper examines whether participation in religious or other social organizations can help offset the negative effects of growing up in a disadvantaged environment. Using the National Survey of Families and Households, we collect measures of disadvantage as well as parental involvement with religious and other social organizations when the youth were ages 3 to 19 and we observe their outcomes 13 to 15 years later. We consider a range of definitions of disadvantage in childhood (family income and poverty measures, family characteristics including parental education, and child characteristics including parental assessments of the child) and a range of outcome measures in adulthood (including education, income, and measures of health and psychological wellbeing). Overall, we find strong evidence that youth with religiously active parents are less affected later in life by childhood disadvantage than youth whose parents did not frequently attend religious services. These buffering effects of religious organizations are most pronounced when outcomes are measured by high school graduation or non-smoking and when disadvantage is measured by family resources or maternal education, but we also find buffering effects for a number of other outcome-disadvantage pairs. We generally find much weaker buffering effects for other social organizations.
Notes: "September 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 30-33).