Article
Suicide and Religion: New Evidence on the Differences Between Protestantism and Catholicism
Benno Torgler,
Christoph Schaltegger,
Benno Torgler
School of Economics and Finance Queensland University of Technology
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Christoph Schaltegger
Department of Economics University of Lucerne
Correspondence should be addressed to Christoph Schaltegger, Department of Economics, University of Lucerne, Frohburgstrasse 3, CH-6002 Lucerne Switzerland. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author
Benno Torgler,
Christoph Schaltegger,
Benno Torgler
School of Economics and Finance Queensland University of Technology
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Christoph Schaltegger
Department of Economics University of Lucerne
Correspondence should be addressed to Christoph Schaltegger, Department of Economics, University of Lucerne, Frohburgstrasse 3, CH-6002 Lucerne Switzerland. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Suicide has remained a persistent social phenomenon and now accounts for more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. There has been much debate, however, over which religious constructs might best explain the variation in suicide rates. Our empirical analysis reveals that even though theological and social differences between Catholicism and Protestantism have decreased, Catholics are still less likely than Protestants to commit or accept suicide. This difference holds even after we control for such confounding factors as social and religious networks. In addition, although religious networks do mitigate suicides among Protestants, the influence of church attendance is more dominant among Catholics. Our analysis also indicates that alternative concepts such as religious commitment and religiosity strongly reduce suicide acceptance.
Supporting Information
Disclaimer: Supplementary materials have been peer-reviewed but not copyedited.
| Filename | Description |
|---|---|
| jssr12117-sup-0001-SupMat.docx23.3 KB | Appendix 1. Between Estimator |
| jssr12117-sup-0002-SupMat.docx32.5 KB | Appendix 2. Church Attendance Versus Other Factors |
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