The United States stays religious because of inequality and weak safety nets
Evidence
- A glaring exception to this international trend is the United States, of course, which has one of the world’s richest societies. There are several explanations for this. The United States had founders with strong religious convictions, and high rates of poverty. Perhaps more importantly, despite its economic wealth, the United States is an outlier among advanced industrialized nations, as it ranks at the top of inequality rankings and has very limited social safety nets (see Solt et al., 2011). — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 894
Categorization
- XREF: Feeds the reader’s Big God / fumi-e analytical frame: religiosity as a function of precarity where moralizing gods substitute for state safety nets.