The Relationship between Inequality and Religion

Lisa Keister and Darren Sherkat will hold a conference and write a book on religion and inequality in America. A long tradition of theoretical and empirical work has focused on the relationship between religion and religious institutions and income, work, wealth, and inequality. In the past decade, there has been a resurgence of interest among scholars in the relationship between religion and different social, economic and political outcomes. Religious affiliation, beliefs and practices have been linked, for example, to life outcomes such as educational attainment for both adolescents and adults, gender roles in the home and labor market, occupational choice, decisions about lifestyle preferences, family formation and fertility, income, wealth and other economic processes.

Keister and Sherkat have recruited an interdisciplinary group of scholars to participate in this conference and the resulting volume. These include academics who were the leading progenitors of the study of religion and social class, stratification experts in sociology and economics who have examined the links between religion and inequality, and sociologists of religion who have played a key role in the resurgence of interest in the religion-inequality connection. Topics will focus on the relationship of religion to domains such as (1) gender, (2) work and labor markets, (3) education, income and wealth, (4) race, ethnicity and class, (5) health and happiness, and (6) organizations.