Religiosity is Declining BUT Giving is Increasing: Can the Nonreligious Really Be Less Generous?

Ryan T. Cragun; Alexandra Rodriguez; Jesse Smith; David Speed

doi:10.5334/snr.164

Figures & Tables

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics by Religious Affiliation.

	NONE (N = 1667)		ATHEIST/AGNOSTIC (N = 404)		CATHOLIC (N = 1240)		BAPTIST (N = 1678)		OTHER CHRISTIAN (N = 3385)		JEWISH (N = 116)
	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD
Total Family Income	93,574.3	172,713.8	121,794.6	132,917.4	112,448.0	170,145.4	71,216.9	101,193.4	90,027.6	99,589.4	193,321.1	168,979.3
Total Family Income (transformed)	104.50	41.54	118.53	38.65	113.22	40.21	96.01	37.59	105.38	38.67	141.11	38.99
Wealth	318,176.4	1,083,152.0	469,219.6	1,933,506.0	549,187.8	1,830,686.0	225,471.2	914,678.7	428,274.8	1,420,237.0	1,366,952.0	1,774,995.0
Wealth (transformed)	19.27	14.22	23.27	13.38	25.18	13.23	18.82	13.29	21.91	14.11	34.68	10.55
Age – respondent	41.64	14.07	38.34	12.78	51.97	16.73	52.38	15.55	47.89	16.42	54.76	18.15
Educational Attainment – respondent	13.45	2.32	14.86	1.99	13.23	3.28	13.17	2.11	13.69	2.32	16.09	1.30
Household Size	2.57	1.51	2.20	1.26	2.79	1.58	2.38	1.46	2.54	1.47	2.29	1.39
Male (proportion)	0.70	0.46	0.81	0.39	0.74	0.44	0.55	0.50	0.65	0.48	0.76	0.43
Metro Area (proportion)	0.86	0.35	0.90	0.30	0.91	0.28	0.81	0.39	0.83	0.37	0.98	0.13
White (proportion)*	0.57	0.50	0.87	0.34	0.76	0.43	0.24	0.43	0.55	0.50	0.97	0.18
Black (proportion)	0.37	0.48	0.07	0.26	0.07	0.26	0.75	0.43	0.41	0.49	0.03	0.16
Asian (proportion)	0.02	0.13	0.04	0.19	0.02	0.14	0.00	0.04	0.01	0.09	0.00	0.00
	MUSLIM (N = 52)		BUDDHIST (N = 30)		LDS (N = 60)		OTHER (N = 75)				TOTAL (N = 8,707)
	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD			MEAN	SD
Total Family Income	77,848.8	112,774.3	90,149.5	86,702.0	132,646.6	98,140.2	107,724.2	155,432.9			93,498.4	132,500.3
Total Family Income (transformed)	92.30	46.93	107.67	34.87	125.71	33.52	106.66	47.85			105.69	40.02
Wealth	116,696.2	345,527.8	361,686.8	799,765.8	593,519.0	848,042.3	391,072.7	729,638.8			398,465.0	1,377,538.0
Wealth (transformed)	13.43	13.72	20.86	15.28	28.18	12.84	23.93	13.12			21.51	14.03
Age – respondent	46.33	15.55	49.37	15.28	53.52	18.62	44.64	16.06			47.79	16.33
Educational Attainment – respondent	13.76	2.45	14.47	2.00	15.33	2.26	14.28	2.82			13.59	2.47
Household Size	2.88	1.94	2.43	1.43	3.53	1.97	2.73	1.64			2.54	1.50
Male (proportion)	0.79	0.41	0.77	0.43	0.78	0.42	0.73	0.45			0.70	0.47
Metro Area (proportion)	0.90	0.30	0.97	0.18	0.93	0.25	0.85	0.36			0.85	0.35
White (proportion)	0.23	0.43	0.37	0.49	0.90	0.30	0.39	0.49			0.54	0.50
Black (proportion)	0.63	0.49	0.13	0.35	0.05	0.22	0.12	0.33			0.39	0.49
Asian (proportion)	0.08	0.27	0.37	0.49	0.00	0.00	0.32	0.47			0.02	0.12

[i] * “Other” race is reflected in the constant in the regression models. White, Black, and Asian will likely not sum to 1.0; the balance for any given religious group is individuals in the “Other” racial category.

Table 2

Probability of Donating to Various Organizations by Religious Affiliation Without Controls.

	NONE	ATHEIST/AGNOSTIC	CATHOLIC	BAPTIST	OTHER CHRISTIAN	JEWISH	MUSLIM	BUDDHIST	LDS	OTHER	TOTAL
Religion	0.07	0.05	0.27	0.28	0.33	0.33	0.13	0.10	0.69	0.26	0.25
Organization for the Needy	0.13	0.23	0.19	0.15	0.18	0.43	0.25	0.28	0.26	0.19	0.17
Health Organization	0.07	0.08	0.12	0.06	0.08	0.36	0.09	0.10	0.14	0.07	0.08
International Peace Organization	0.03	0.09	0.06	0.03	0.04	0.20	0.06	0.17	0.05	0.07	0.04
Educational Organization	0.06	0.09	0.11	0.07	0.09	0.22	0.10	0.07	0.23	0.13	0.08
Youth Organization	0.04	0.05	0.06	0.05	0.05	0.09	0.08	0.10	0.14	0.04	0.05
Cultural Organization	0.06	0.12	0.05	0.02	0.04	0.20	0.12	0.03	0.14	0.06	0.05
Environmental Organization	0.06	0.14	0.07	0.02	0.05	0.19	0.04	0.13	0.05	0.09	0.06
Other Organization	0.03	0.07	0.06	0.01	0.03	0.13	0.04	0.10	0.05	0.04	0.04
Any Organization	0.30	0.44	0.49	0.40	0.49	0.75	0.48	0.57	0.80	0.49	0.44
Secular Organizations Only	0.28	0.44	0.38	0.27	0.34	0.71	0.46	0.50	0.48	0.39	0.33

Table 3

Mean Donations in Dollars (not transformed) to Charitable Organizations by Religious Affiliation.

	NONE		ATHEIST/AGNOSTIC		CATHOLIC		BAPTIST		OTHER CHRISTIAN		JEWISH
	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD
Religion	49.98	443.90	49.12	563.25	328.14	1041.61	847.21	3151.40	1268.97	4806.75	595.95	2199.48
Organization for the Needy	43.32	239.16	130.64	646.43	93.98	567.63	47.88	237.18	127.74	1582.62	290.04	743.47
Health Organization	21.49	230.80	37.70	326.14	49.69	351.68	18.94	230.73	24.34	248.56	204.97	845.73
International Peace Organization	12.14	159.86	19.33	125.67	26.49	356.79	4.94	56.74	15.91	165.48	74.96	348.07
Educational Organization	41.43	475.96	295.32	4985.14	60.93	634.86	14.16	126.32	99.80	2103.46	82.27	259.28
Youth Organization	9.22	88.13	32.41	291.18	21.54	197.42	10.22	132.65	24.74	410.46	17.35	76.03
Cultural Organization	18.07	144.95	45.61	300.62	14.88	164.96	3.56	57.70	18.73	573.32	90.95	369.88
Environmental Organization	23.61	426.27	22.31	93.63	30.47	345.60	2.03	20.46	18.06	450.53	89.78	492.03
Other Organization	17.07	223.58	31.55	267.09	80.79	995.24	14.04	300.32	31.05	502.14	104.74	620.45
Any Organization	25.54	153.89	73.36	580.87	78.82	262.42	108.95	370.89	182.50	787.62	173.58	381.92
Secular Organizations Only	22.90	149.08	77.39	644.14	47.46	230.93	14.48	78.29	45.51	474.30	120.78	262.21
	MUSLIM		BUDDHIST		LDS		OTHER				TOTAL
	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD	MEAN	SD			MEAN	SD
Religion	173.08	814.12	25.00	85.85	7340.25	8903.92	224.23	695.18			779.75	3496.72
Organization for the Needy	85.00	358.75	84.33	212.01	182.92	609.71	59.05	186.89			92.99	1034.61
Health Organization	7.21	30.65	3.17	10.54	44.43	169.98	12.33	63.32			29.24	278.14
International Peace Organization	3.92	22.01	20.67	83.54	2.67	14.36	15.20	67.71			15.38	191.83
Educational Organization	19.62	81.09	22.00	84.09	51.00	164.47	27.13	129.40			73.77	1727.11
Youth Organization	19.83	97.06	20.33	76.04	124.17	472.69	14.93	115.88			19.33	285.85
Cultural Organization	9.52	29.44	16.00	87.64	50.25	310.59	8.67	58.49			17.41	378.34
Environmental Organization	0.98	7.00	8.50	29.04	5.83	29.24	24.13	134.00			18.78	366.96
Other Organization	2.88	15.38	30.00	105.54	411.67	2456.82	15.33	116.11			35.52	563.23
Any Organization	35.42	111.37	25.56	39.18	914.22	1073.50	45.07	95.52			120.68	561.50
Secular Organizations Only	17.35	58.20	25.62	40.34	109.12	382.25	22.30	61.80			37.98	349.31

Religiosity is Declining BUT Giving is Increasing: Can the Nonreligious Really Be Less Generous?

Figures & Tables

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

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