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Weber, Work Ethic, and Well-Being–The Psychic Costs of Unemployment for Protestants

Weber, Work Ethic, and Well-Being–The Psychic Costs of Unemployment for Protestants. André van Hoorn a & Robbert Maseland b,c a Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of Economics b Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of Political Science

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Weber, Work Ethic, and Well-Being–The Psychic Costs of Unemployment for Protestants

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  1. Weber, Work Ethic,and Well-Being–The Psychic Costs of Unemployment for Protestants André van Hoorna & Robbert Maselandb,c a Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of Economics b Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of Political Science c Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne

  2. The argument in brief • Existing evidence on Protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism is limited and conceptually unsound • Alternative: value differences should be reflected in so-called “happiness functions” • Religion and the psychic costs of unemployment • Estimated with subjective well-being data • Evidence of a Protestant work ethic

  3. Evidence on Protestant ethic • Protestantism and economic performance • Not Weber’s thesis • Spirit of capitalism ≠ economic performance • Protestantism and differences in work values • Values surveys • Empirical problems: Results sensitive to changes in conditions (e.g. Clarke et al. APSR 1999) • Theoretical problems: Likely to elicit marginal preferences rather than values (Maseland and van Hoorn JIBS forthcoming)

  4. Values vs. marginal preferences • Value attached to furthering an objective is a function of current level of satiation • Do people who value leisure above work have low work ethic? • No! • People who value leisure the most are generally the people who have the least of it.

  5. Measuring values: Whatmakes Protestants happy? • Basic idea: Estimating happiness functions • How to do that? • Structure of happiness is known • E.g. marital status, health, age, economic situation • Impact of these factors differs between individuals and groups • E.g. left- vs. right-wing individuals (Di Tella and MacCulloch RES 2005) • Do Protestants “care” more about work? • Impact differences correspond to weights in happiness (utility) functions: preferences or values

  6. Method and data • Unemployment has psychic costs • Happiness = f(u,Z) • u = unemployed dummy, 0-1 • Other factors Z • Are Protestants hurt more by unemployment? • Data from World Values Surveys • Self-reported happiness, 1-4 (cardinal) • Religious denomination • Employment status • Control variables: • Health, marital status et cetera • Multilevel model: individuals nested in countries

  7. The impact of unemployment

  8. Summary & conclusionWas Weber right? • Protestantism and the spirit of capitalism • Values vs. economic performance • Values vs. marginal preferences • Solution: Happiness functions • Protestants and the impact of unemployment • Strong indications for value differences between Protestants and people from other religious denominations

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