Women's employment decisions in Malaysia: Does religion matter?

Religion may influence female employment decisions because different religions specify different life styles. This study investigates whether religion is a significant determinant of married and single women's paid-work and full-time employment in Malaysia. Using the Second Malaysian Family Life Survey and a sequential logit approach, this paper finds that religion is less influential in urban areas than in rural areas.     

How culture influences foreign trade: evidence from the U.S. and China

Using a gravity model of trade and the U.S. and Chinese panel data, I present evidence that supports the views that linguistic links have become more important in foreign trade than geographical proximity and that linguistic influence on trade is more significant in China than in the U.S. The estimated result based on a broad panel of economies shows little overall relation between religious similarity and foreign trade in both the U.S. and China. But there is an indication that the religious dissimilarity tends to retard foreign trade with poor countries and regions and to encourage foreign trade with richer places. I also found that, although religious retardation on foreign trade is more significant in China than in the U.S., religious dissimilarity tends to retard the US export more than that of China; by contrast, it tends to retard the Chinese import more than that of the U.S. At last, the socio-economic implications of the estimated results are discussed.     

Neighborhood conditions,religious coping,and uncontrolled hypertension

The purpose of this study is to see whether God-mediated control beliefs moderate the relationship between living in rundown neighborhoods and uncontrolled hypertension. God-mediated control refers to the belief that God will help people handle the stressors that arise in life. Data are provided by a nationwide survey of adults (N = 1919). Three ways of assessing uncontrolled hypertension are examined: a binary format contrasting people with and without uncontrolled hypertension, systolic and diastolic blood pressure scored continuously, and a four ordinal category scheme recommended by the American Heart Association. The data suggest that stronger God-mediated control beliefs moderate the relationship between neighborhood conditions and uncontrolled blood pressure when blood pressure is scored continuously and when the American Heart Association scheme are used as outcomes.     

Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation,health, and well-being

Religious disaffiliation—leaving the religious tradition in which one was raised for no religious affiliation in adulthood—has become more common in recent years, though few studies have examined its consequences for the health and well-being of individuals. We use an innovative approach, comparing the health and subjective well-being of religious disaffiliates to those who remain affiliated using pooled General Social Survey samples from 1973 through 2012. We find that religious disaffiliates experience poorer health and lower well-being than those consistently affiliated and those who are consistently unaffiliated. We also demonstrate that the disadvantage for those who leave religious traditions is completely mediated by the frequency of church attendance, as disaffiliates attend church less often. Our results point to the importance of the social processes surrounding religious disaffiliation and emphasize the role of dynamics in the relationship between religious affiliation and health.     

Reaching Isolated Older People

In the second part of a paper reporting a unique single day a week adult day program, the service methodologies developed in the program are described as well as a study of outcomes in four areas: success in reaching the target group, attendance, length of participation, and resolution of psychosocial and health related problems. Outcomes, illustrated by statistical and case material, indicate success in achieving the overall goal of maintenance and enhancement of the participant's life and functioning as a whole. Such a resource is recommended as a vital one for the target population of isolated older people described in the paper.     

中国共产党少数民族宗教政策的形成和发展--中国共产党民族纲领政策形成和发展研究之十六

中国共产党在第二次国内革命战争时期明确提出了对少数民族的宗教政策,在红军长征时期丰富和发展了这一政策.在抗日战争和解放战争时期,党非常重视宗教工作.新中国建立以来,党对少数民族的宗教政策在曲折中发展.进入90年代以后,党的宗教理论和宗教政策有了新的发展.     

Secularity,religiosity, and health: Physical and mental health differences between atheists,agnostics, and nonaffiliated theists compared to religiously affiliated individuals

Extensive literature in the social and medical sciences link religiosity to positive health outcomes. Conversely it is often assumed that secularity carries negative consequences for health; however, recent research outlining different types of secular individuals complicates this assumption. Using a national sample of American adults, we compare physical and mental health outcomes for atheists, agnostics, religiously nonaffiliated theists, and theistic members of organized religious traditions. Results indicate better physical health outcomes for atheists compared to other secular individuals and members of some religious traditions. Atheists also reported significantly lower levels of psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion) compared to both other seculars and members of most religious traditions. In contrast, physical and mental health were significantly worse for nonaffiliated theists compared to other seculars and religious affiliates on most outcomes. These findings highlight the necessity of distinguishing among different types of secular individuals in future research on health.     

Rhetoric or reality? An economic analysis of the effects of religion in Sweden

On the basis of simple rational-choice theory, it is argued that Christian religious involvement influences the divorce, abortion, non-payment, and children-born-out-of-wedlock rates negatively. This influence stems from an expectation that a god punishes certain forms of action and from social reprimands of devotees. Regression analysis is then used to test the theory in the case of Sweden in the year 1990, and the importance of religion, in its negative effect on all of these rates, is strongly confirmed. A particularly interesting result: the marginal effect on three of these rates of increasing the fraction of people active in the Church of Sweden is clearly larger than the marginal effect of increasing the fraction of more conservative free-church members.     

Initiation,Trance And Possession in an Afro-Brazilian Religion-The Narratives of a mineiro maranhense

This article presents the process of initiation to the Tambor de Mina, the mainreli-gious tradition in Maranh?o, a state in the north of Brazil .The Tambor de Mina designates an ec-static and inziatic ...     

Opinions toward suicide: Cross-national evaluation of cultural and religious effects on individuals

This study evaluates the role that religious and cultural values have on individual opinions toward suicide worldwide. Using multilevel modeling with data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey (42,299 individuals in 43 countries), the current study is designed to analyze the effect of individual (i.e., micro-level), and country (i.e., macro-level) characteristics on opinions toward suicide. Specifically, cultural values, religious affiliation, religious importance, and church attendance are analyzed at both the individual and country levels to evaluate the impact of individual and country level effects on opinions toward suicide. The results show that individual opinions toward suicide are influenced by individual belief as well as by the cultural and religious characteristics of their country. The results suggest that evaluation of individual opinions toward controversial behavior should account for the unique and cross-interaction effects of micro- and macro-level effects.