Religion and Economic well being, any linkage?

[subba]

Came across a mapping distribution of income in the US by religious denomination.

GOOD.is | The Almighty Dollar (Raw Image)

Throws up some interesting results. How relevant is this mapping really?

[gunnut]

Came across a mapping distribution of income in the US by religious denomination.

GOOD.is | The Almighty Dollar (Raw Image)

Throws up some interesting results. How relevant is this mapping really?

Probably not very.

43% of hindus make over $100,000? Have you seen India?

The data might be accurate, but it only tells one side of the story. Maybe the rich hindus emigrate here because they don't want to be in India.

[maverick]

Probably not very.

43% of hindus make over $100,000? Have you seen India?

The data might be accurate, but it only tells one side of the story. Maybe the rich hindus emigrate here because they don't want to be in India.

I think its mainly because Hindus are comparatively recent immigrants and most of them were already professionals (to fulfill visa requirements). Plus I also think that maybe these smaller demographics have such a high deviation because they are well, small.

[crooks]

Hard to tell - could the figures reflect culture more than anything else?

Mainline Protestants and Jews tend to be driven by their cultures towards certain professions or have certain levers of influence in society, not neccissarily because of religion, but just the way things panned out.

I'd imagine the Catholic numbers are dragged lower by Latin American Immigration, and the Jehovah's Witnesses figures are interesting (why so poor?).

In other countries there is often a link between religion and economics - in Ireland for example Protestants would have traditionally been much wealthier than the Catholic majority, and indeed many industries like newspapers, Guinness (!), the arts and culture in general would have reflected a 'minority rule' of sorts that only would have changed in the last 50 years or so.
Not meritocracy so much as colonialism, but I digress.

[Tronic]

43% of hindus make over $100,000? Have you seen India?

The data might be accurate, but it only tells one side of the story. Maybe the rich hindus emigrate here because they don't want to be in India.

I think its mainly because most people who emigrate happen to be professionals. Though, I doubt it is the rich people that emigrate; most people actually move back to India once they retire or see opportunities back home. Something which is otherwise hard because of the stiff competition back home; India's infrastructure is not as developed to fulfill the wants of all its population; so they migrate to the West to look for jobs which they would normally find it much too hard to get back home. Otherwise, India has the third largest pool of billionaires in the world, and the rich prefer to stay there.

[antimony]

Probably not very.

43% of hindus make over $100,000? Have you seen India?

The data might be accurate, but it only tells one side of the story. Maybe the rich hindus emigrate here because they don't want to be in India.

I believe the explanation is that most Hindus (a large part f the Indian expats) who migrate are highly educated and therefore hold higher incomes jobs and/ or have edged their way into small businesses.

I can bet that the UK based picture of the same demographics would be quite different

[Vinod2070]

I think its mainly because Hindus are comparatively recent immigrants and most of them were already professionals (to fulfill visa requirements). Plus I also think that maybe these smaller demographics have such a high deviation because they are well, small.

I think even the second and third generation Hindus in USA are doing well and would have the same or better income distribution compared to the first generation immigrants.

USA provides opportunities to do well that India still does not provide to the same scale. I think an average Chinese in USA would again be doing much better compared to back home. Indians have a strong affinity to good education and a disproportionate numbers of people would be in professions demanding high education and that is what leads to this skewing of numbers.

[subba]

Probably not very.

43% of hindus make over $100,000? Have you seen India?

The data might be accurate, but it only tells one side of the story. Maybe the rich hindus emigrate here because they don't want to be in India.

Appropriate analogy. Yes India itself may not bear exactly with the results shown in this US sample. But India has always historically been obsessed with knowledge and is only now coming out of centuries of colonial and outsider influences and it's not doing badly at all.

Also as mentioned it's not rich Indians that migrated to the US, but very middle class folks. GCSE results in the UK too show Indians amongst the highest immigrant communities there, which translates into again similar economic benefits there also. Notably people from say Bangladesh or Pakistan are not performing that well and are much below even the national averages.

So there is a stress that Indians do pay on education. A reason many sent their children to the best universities in the West. India on the other hand emerged in 1947 with literacy barely in double digits and life expectancy barely 32 years. But in 60 years that's looking back at the past and it's done quite well since then since people are talking realistically about eliminating poverty and illiteracy in the coming decade or so.

As for the Indians in Africa, we do know they were extremely successful even though it was not the same type of people that migrated there. Remember Idi Amin's kicking out of Indians from Uganda in the 70's and taking over all their wealth? So this is certainly not a one off, small professional demographic at work.

[Aussiegunner]

The Jewish figure probably gives more of an indication that religion and wealth are correlated, as US Jews generally aren't first immigration immigrants so it rules out the sort of selection bias towards rich immigrants that people here are talking about. Essentially the Jews have the same opportunities as any other American does but on average do considerably. I'd consider it to be more of a correlation between culture and wealth though. You'd probably see something similar between Chinese communities who follow a range of religions, or no religion at all, but share similar cultural beliefs and behaviours. I personaly think that the role of culture in driving economic success or otherwise is very important and is something that is inadequately considered by modern mainstream economics.

[Vinod2070]

India (and China) have historically been the richest countries on the face of the earth. Just a few hundred years back India was the richest country on earth and China a close second.

The Western domination of the world's wealth and power in the last few centuries is an aberration for the most part.

There is again a redistribution of wealth and power happening with the East taking its due share. Nothing surprising about it!

[Vinod2070]

List of regions by past GDP (PPP) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even as late as 1700, India had the maximum economic output followed by China. This reversed in 1820 but the two countries were still far ahead of the West.

[Shek]

Subba,
A lot of folks hit on reasons other than religion for this particular graphic why particular religious groups may have more income than others. However, it is not uncommon to find differences that may be causal that are addressed in economic papers. The major one that comes to mind is Protestantism (vice Catholocism). The Catholic Church was very dogmatic and the Protestants represented a freer mind that wasn't bound by tradition - living in a country that espoused Protestantism provided the right environment for entrepreneurs to experiment and grow the economy versus the stranglehold that the Roman Catholic Church had on society (and thus the economy as well).

[calass]

Probably not very.

43% of hindus make over $100,000? Have you seen India?

The data might be accurate, but it only tells one side of the story. Maybe the rich hindus emigrate here because they don't want to be in India.

Not rich Hindus but that the American immigration policy only allows educated Indians,Hindus (rich and middle class) to come to the US. And educated people tend to make money.

As someone else said,the same chart for UK will have a different result purely because of their immigration policies.

This is why I find it funny when people say the American immigration system is broken..the only thing broken is that there is no security at the borders.But how can an immigration system be broken when the legal immigrants coming in seem to do quite well mostly and are no burden on the state?

[Parihaka]

Dammit, it makes economic sense for me to become a Jew. Oy vay.

[HillTribe]

There is absolutely NO relation IMV between the two... Religion in moderation could be a force that sort of rationalizes our absurd existence and gives it some meaning.

People who have a sense of purpose usually perform more productively than people who are irresolute.

But having said that, productivity is the only thing that determines economic well being. And productivity is DIRECTLY INFLUENCED (unlike religion which affects economic well being because of some weak subjective correlation) by the following:

In my order of importance

1. How well you manage your resources: Minimize waste, get maximum milage out of your strengths. True for individuals, true for nations

2. Education

3. Nutrition and healthcare

4. Infrastructure and other support...

If religion were a factor...

--Saudi Arabia would be the richest country in the world, Sans oil
--Afghanistan would be pretty rich
--Cambodia (devoutly Buddhist) wouldn't be the basket case that it is
--Poland (devoutly catholic) would be as rich as the UK
--Nepal (Devoutly Hindu/Buddhist/Animist) wouldnt be the messed up place it is currently