Dipartimento di Politiche Pubbliche e Scelte Collettive – POLIS Department of Public Policy and Public Choice – POLIS

Working paper n. 142

May 2009

Religiosity and happiness: an ever-winning couple? An answer from India

Matteo Migheli

UNIVERSITA’ DEL PIEMONTE ORIENTALE “Amedeo Avogadro” ALESSANDRIA

Periodico mensile on-line "POLIS Working Papers" - Iscrizione n.591 del 12/05/2006 - Tribunale di Alessandria

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Religiosity and Happiness: an ever-Winning Couple? An

Answer from India

Matteo Migheli*

Abstract The link between individual religiosity and happiness has been studied with respect to different aspects. The general conclusion is that religiosity helps people to feel happier. However the extant studies have never taken into account how belonging to a discriminated religious group in a tense environment affects happiness. This paper analyzes this in India, a multireligious country, characterized by religious conflicts. The results show that membership to a discriminated group is source of unhappiness provided that the group represents a minority in a specific territory. Instead, when a religious community is a minority in the country, but it is represents the majority of the population in some specific region(s) membership to it increases individual’s happiness. A religious-based federalism could appease the conflicts and increase people’s happiness.

Keywords: happiness, India, religious denominations, conflict, discrimination

JEL Classification: D01, D69, Z12

University of Eastern Piedmont, POLIS Department, Via Cavour, 84 15100 Alessandria – Italy. Tel. +39(0)131283807 email: matteo.migheli@sp.unipmn.it

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1. Introduction The wide literature on happiness shows that religiosity is a major factor that affects individual

happiness. The extant works consider either the attitude towards religion (i.e. to believe a god or

not, to attend the service periodically or not, etc.) or the specific denomination to which the person

belongs. However all the existing studies involve countries characterized by the absence of

religious-based conflicts. Although religious minorities may and do exist (for example Protestants

and Catholics in some European countries), these are free of professing their faith. Unfortunately in

some parts of the world to belong to some specific religious denomination can be cause of

discrimination and/or persecution. In this case, despite the positive effect that faith per se can have

on the individual’s happiness, membership to a discriminated group can be source of unhappiness.

This paper aims at testing if this latter hypothesis is true and to which extent religious

discrimination can cause unhappiness. The best environment to study this topic empirically is India.

The large population and the mix of cultures and religious denominations, united with common

policies centrally inspired to secular principles of government (see Wolpert, 1989 and Sen, 2005)

make India the optimal context for the aim of this paper. The initial hypothesis is confirmed:

belonging to the religious denominations which are discriminated against increases the probability

of being unhappy; membership to minority but not discriminated groups does not affect individual

happiness.

In a multicultural and multireligious society like the U.S.A. stronger religious faith correlates

positively with greater feelings of individual well-being (Hadaway, 1978). Also controlling for a

number of socio-demographic indicators, religiosity or religious activities are positively and

strongly associated with happiness (among others, see Chamberlain and Zika, 1988; Ellison et al.,

1989 and Ellison, 1991). There are several interpretations for this relationship between religiosity

and happiness: Witter et al. (1985) suggest that places of worship facilitate social interaction, and

thus enhance informal social networks and happiness (see also Ellison, 1991). The empirical

evidence found by Hayo (2007) is in favour of this interpretation: rather than faith per se, it is

service attendance that enhances Eastern Europeans’ happiness; anyway this finding can not be

considered as conclusive, given the overall results presented by the literature. An alternative

explanation relates religiosity and happiness through personal relationship with a divine other

(Pollner, 1989).

All the early studies agree with considering religiosity as a source of individual happiness.

More recently Swinyard et al. (2001) confirm the previous findings studying the U.S.A. and

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Singapore, two countries with very different predominant denominations and minorities. Analyzing

the data of the U.S. General Social Survey, Ferriss (2002) finds that religious organizations and

participation in religious services contribute to community integration and happiness. Moreover he

finds very little variations of happiness among different denominations, in particular Protestants,

Catholics and Jews. Analyzing a sample of U.S. citizens ages more than 45 and living in the

Southwest, also Soydemir et al. (2004) observe that attendance to the service is positively correlated

with happiness and self-reported health. Notoriously both in the U.S. and in Singapore all the

affiliations considered in these studies are not (or very weakly) discriminated.

In line with these studies, Francis et al. (2003) find a significant positive correlation between

scores on the Oxford Happiness Inventory and positive attitude towards Christianity; the examined

subjects are Germans from different Christian denominations and the authors do not report any

significant difference among individuals belonging to different denominations1. Francis et al.

(2004) study the relationship between happiness and religiosity in Israel, a country where

discrimination based on religious denomination is a fundamental characteristic of everyday life.

Unfortunately the authors consider only Judaism, i.e. the religion professed by the majority of the

citizens and, moreover, the religion of the dominant class in the country. Once again the authors

find that attitude towards Judaism and happiness are positively linked2. Analysing a sample of

Hungarians immediately after the collapse of the communist regime and some years later, Lelkes

(2006) gets analogous results: religious people are happier than non-religious. In addition the

happiness of this second group is much more sensitive to money (i.e. wages and wealth) than

religious individuals’ is.

From a partially different perspective, Maltby et al. (1999), O’Connor et al. (2003) and Kim

(2006) find that religiosity affects psychological well-being through the frequency of personal

religious practice; once more the studies are conduced in a country, the U.K., where there is no (or

very weak) form of religious discrimination (in addition the authors do not control for the

denomination, so their results hold on average for the population as a whole). Iannaccone et al.

(1997) and Barro and McClearly (2001) argue and empirically show a direct and positive link

between happiness and freedom of choosing religions and churches. The authors claim thus that

1 It must be highlighted that in the case of Germany neither Catholics or Lutherans can be considered a minority; however they are very unevenly distributed on the federal territory. This implies that the Catholics are a (strong) minority in some Länder (where the Lutherans are dominant), while they are domninant in those States where the Lutherans are a minority. 2 It must be noted that, if an Israeli citizen belongs to the Hebrew community, his individual attitude towards Judaism does not affect very much the probability of being killed in a terroristic attack. Therefore this probability can likely be assumed as constant across the members of the Hebrew community. This means that, when only Israeli subjects are considered, the particular conditions of the country can be considered as irrelevant on the happiness of the individual as they affect everybody to (almost) the same extent. Also for this reason my paper is substantially different from Francis et al. (2004).

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people’s happiness is enhanced by living in multireligious societies and countries. However,

Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2003) highlight that this finding holds for societies, which are not

characterized by religious conflicts. Indeed where these are present, individual happiness is

hindered. Mookerjee and Beron (2005) examine a sample of sixty countries and focus on religious

fragmentation: they find that this variable is negatively associated with happiness. Although

religious fragmentation is not a measure of religious conflict, or an indication of discrimination

against specific groups, it is likely that these occur more in fragmented than in homogeneous

societies.

As I will explain more in detail in the next section, the members of some religious groups (in

particular Muslims and Sikhs) have been and/or are discriminated and persecuted in India.

Typically the violence is directed against the members of minority groups (Field et al., 2008), as it

is aimed at evicting forcefully these minorities. Furthermore poor people are the most active in

persecuting members of other religious groups, as they struggle for control over scarce resources

(Miguel et al., 2004; Oster, 2004 and Miguel, 2005) more than the rich. Although it is natural to

expect that religiosity has a greater effect on the happiness of people who are in need (Snoep,

2008), discriminations and persecutions can have a negative effect that prevails on the

psychological support offered by the religion. Moreover it is plausible to assess that people who

belong to minority groups are likely to be strongly religious and very tied to their beliefs and

community: if this were not the case, they would (quite) easily avoid discrimination by converting

to another denomination3. Indeed analyzing the answer to the question asking whether religious

faith is important or not for children, I find some evidence in favour of the previous claim (see

Table 2). Sikhs, Muslims and Christians consider religious faith to be an important quality for

children more than Hindus do. This reflects a strong attempt to keep religious traditions.

The results of the present inquiry are consistent with the initial hypothesis: discriminations

and conflicts due to the religious affiliation are detrimental for the individual happiness. Secondly

the expected negative effect is found only for the denominations which are still actively

discriminated (above all Muslims), whilst no significant effect is detected for groups which are not

in conflict among each other or against the Hindus.

3 Assuming, as I am actually doing here, that discrimination is source of unhappiness.

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2. Religious conflicts in contemporary India Since its independence from the British domination (August 15th 1947), India has been

shacked by religious conflicts, that led to the secession of Pakistan and Bangladesh4, whose

populations are almost totally Muslim. Also a fraction of today’s Indian population is Muslim, but

they represent a minority with respect to the Hindu. As a result of the complex history of the Indian

subcontinent, today’s India is a multireligious society in which all the major religions of the world

are represented (see Table 1). Although the most of them have been introduced in India centuries

ago and despite the positive policy of pacification (also by the means of federalism, see Hardgrave,

1993 and Chadda, 2002) and laicism carried on by the Indian governments, the religious conflicts

have never been appeased. In particular the Hindu community began to give a negative

representation of the Muslims around the 14th century and since then scholars and writers of both

communities have claimed the superiority of their own group (Baber, 2004) and have represented

the “other” in a devilish way (see Sen and Wagner, 2005). This climate has been persistent over the

time despite the absence of open conflicts during some periods.

The conflict that opposes Hindus and Muslims is the most relevant case of religious tension in

contemporary India. An attempt to solve it was the creation of Pakistan, which cost some half a

million victims (see Hardgrave, 1993) among both the Hindu and the Muslim communities.

Unfortunately granting independence to a Muslim country has not been enough to appease the

conflict for at least two reasons. On the one hand a large number of Muslim citizens did not cross

the border with Pakistan5 and are still living in India; on the other hand the unofficial war between

India and Pakistan for the control of Jammu and Kashmir has exacerbated the religious conflict.

This federated state was created when the homonymous princedom was integrated in India. It was

(and still is) formed by two distinct regions: Jammu, with a strong Hindu majority, and Kashmir,

whose population is mainly Muslim. Since its origin the State is contended between India (which

supports the Hindu population of Jammu) and Pakistan (that would like to annex the Muslim region

of Kashmir). This situation contributes to aggravate the tension between the two groups all across

India. In addition to (and partially as a consequence of) this diplomatic/military conflict, the Hindus

have paramilitary and extreme political organizations although they could control the country

legally through elections, representing more than 80% of the Indian population. The existence of

these extreme organizations “justifies” the analogous Muslims’ counterparts. Iannaccone and

Berman (2006), highlight that violent conflicts arise especially where minorities are discriminated

or risk their individuality. In this case the fight is for the survival of traditions and identity. The

4 In reality Bangladesh became independent only some years later: at the begenning it was part of Pakistan. 5 The original Pakistan including actual Bangladesh.

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existence of legal movements, whose aim is the promotion of the Hindu tradition through the

absorption and the amalgamation of the others in the Hindu society, generates the violent opposition

of the religious minorities (in particular the Sikhs before the creation of Punjab, and the Muslims).

One of the nationalist Hindu parties, the BJP, aims at erasing some special permission granted to the

Muslims (Stepan, 2000), who are allowed to keep some traditional rules regarding marriage and

bequests. Furthermore, the international terrorist attacks of Muslims and the ambiguous position of

the English-language Indian media have contributed to exacerbate the tension over the last years

(Lankala, 2006).

Another long conflict has opposed Sikhs and Hindus over the time in the region that today is

Punjab. The Sikh community claimed more independence from the central government in order to

rptect their religion and traditions. At the beginning the Government tried to solve the conflict by

the means of the army but the most relevant result of the military intervention was murder of Indira

Gandhi in October 1984. The diplomatic way has revealed to be more effective since the creation of

the federated State of Punjab and the local elections held in 1993 (won by the Sikh national party)

tensions between Sikhs and Hindus eased. Today Punjab is one of the richest Indian states and the

majority of the population follow the Sikh religion. It is the only Indian state, whose population is

not prevalently Hindu. This has some consequences in terms of happiness: although the Sikhs are a

minority in India, nevertheless they are the majority in the State where they are concentrated, so that

their situation is not assimilable to that of Muslims. The Sikhs are a majority who lived a conflict

solved with their political victory; Muslims are a minority everywhere living in conflict.

The situation of Christians in general and Protestant in particular is somewhat similar to

Muslims’, but there are some fundamental differences which explain the almost total absence of

fights. The main similarity is that Protestants (and, to a lesser extent, Catholics) have been the

dominant class in India during the 19th and the first half of the 20th century exactly as Muslims

dominated India during the Moghul empire. As Muslims, under the Raj also Christians were

granted the possibility of maintaining some peculiar rules and habits, like their own family law

(Baird, 2001); and also after independence they have maintained this privilege, which has

contributed to feed the resentment of nationalist Hindus. Two factors more are responsible of

potentioal tensions between Christians (especially Protestants) and Hindus, and both developed

before 1947. First: the British officers often gave converted Indians some minor charges in the civil

establishment, so that Christian was also partially synonymous of cooperation with the colonizer.

Second: as in the entire world, also in India the Christian missioners tried to convert as many

Indians as possible (Reetz, 1993): this fact has always been seen as cultural violence by the Hindus.

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However the tensions between Christians and Hindus are very much weaker than between Hindus

and Muslims. This happens especially because the discrimination against the Muslims translates

also in terms of education and income (on average the Hindus are more educated and earn higher

wages than Muslims), whilst Christians and Hindus are not distinguishable under these aspects. The

absence of any noticeable economic discrimination contributes to mitigate possible conflicts.

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3. Data and methodology The data used in the paper (with the exception of those relative to the shares of different

religions) are contained in the World Value Survey (WVS) and cover all the waves of the survey.

Happiness is graded by the responder on a scale ranging from 0 (“not at all happy”) to 3 (“very

happy”)6. The other variables are either dummies (for example gender) or categorical (for example

education); in the following of this section I provide the reader with a brief description of each,

together with the motivation for their inclusion in this study. For each interviewee the survey

provides also the current religious affiliation. Data are analyzed by the means of ordered probit

technique.

The first variable to be included is income, whose effect on happiness (and well-being7) has

been debated for a long time, after the seminal work by Easterlin (1974). However, the discussion is

about its influence across countries, whilst within countries it is generally positive and significant,

though diminishing (see Graham, 2005 and, for a review, Clark et al., 2008). The WVS categorize

income in ten clusters, thus in this analysis is it not measured in rupees but it is just a 10-digit

categorical variable. Strongly related to income, unemployment is generally found to be relevant for

happiness: among others, Clark and Oswald (1994) show the negative relationship linking the

former with the latter. Here I control also for having a full-time job, expecting a positive correlation

between this employment status and happiness. More educated individuals enjoy their life more, or,

at least, they are happier (see Stanca, 2008); the WVS reports both the number of years of formal

education received and the higher grade attained. I use this second measure for two reasons: first it

is the “piece of paper” got at the end of each educational step, rather than the number of years per

se, that allows the individual for finding a better job; second: people who have began, but not

finished, a certain level (for example university) could feel frustrated rather than happy, even if the

total number of years they spent in the education system is high. However I have to highlight that

education is strictly related to the religious affiliation of the Indian citizen: perhaps as a

consequence of discrimination, Muslims are significantly less educated than Hindus (see for

example Borooah and Iyer, 2005). Beside the fact that Christians have confessional schools of high

quality and the Muslims have not, Tables 3 and 3bis show that the latter are discriminated in terms

of wage. For a given educational level, wages are statistically identical for Christians, Hindus and

Sikhs, but significantly lower for Muslims. This implies a lower return on education for Muslims,

than for the members of the other religious groups. As a consequence the Muslims have a weak

incentive to invest in education. In turn this increases discrimination: as the Muslims are the least 6 In reality the original WVS data rank happiness in inverse order (i.e. from 1 – very happy – to 4 “not at all happy). For sake’s of semplicity here I iverted the order and rescaled the answers from 0 to 3. 7 I do not consider happiness and well-being to be the same. However several works study the impavt of income on both.

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educated group, they have few chances of getting highly-remunerated jobs. This increases income

distance and supports the religious-based conflict.

Among the non economic subjective characteristics, gender has generally been found to be an

important explanation: women tend to be happier than men are (see Graham, 2005 and Stanca,

2008). Age, state of health and marital status are other variables which present a significant link

with happiness; in particular healthier people are also (non surprisingly) happier (Gerdtham and

Johannesson, 2001). The WVS allows for knowing the subjective state of health, graded on a scale

from 0 – very poor – to 4 – very good8. Although this is a subjective measure, it fits the analysis

better than an objective assessment, as happiness is a subjective status, and therefore it depends

more on subjective than on objective states. Molière’s malade imaginaire was very unhappy

because of imaginary diseases, while being objectively healthy. Married people are in general

happier than singles or widows; hence a dummy variable capturing these statuses is included as a

control.

Eventually in some regressions I also control for political orientation and for the size of the

town, which the interviewee lives in. The first variable aims at capturing Hindu extremism:

members or supporters of the BJP or other extremist political parties could feel unhappier than

moderate people as the first feel the conflict against Muslims more than the second. Indian large

cities are densely populated and they present an income distribution much more unequal than the

countryside. This is also a consequence of the presence of manufacturing plants in the urban sites

(Ravallion, 2000 and Kijima, 2006). This high inequality in large towns can be source of

unhappiness for individuals, as inequality matters on happiness negatively (Alesina et al., 2004 and

Graham and Felton, 2005). However people living in cities can enjoy more job opportunities and

health care, especially if they are skilled, young and educated. As a consequence the dimension of

the city can have some effect on happiness, although it is difficult to hypothesize its sign a priori.

Eventually I introduce a categorical variable “wave” in order to capture the time trend effect (if

any).

The analysis is divided in four parts. Firstly I show that Muslims are actually discriminated:

for a given level of education wages are statistically identical for Christians, Hindus and Sikhs, but

significantly lower for Muslims. Given that, within countries, income is positively related to

happiness, this discrimination is already a source of unhappiness. However income disparities are

only an aspect: as already highlighted, the members of this community are at a war with the Hindus

8 The data are in a reverse order and rescaled with respect to the original WVS.

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and this situation could per se make the minority group unhappy. Therefore I will regress subjective

happiness against both income and religious denomination of the interviewee; in this way the

coefficient of religious denomination does not include the effect of income. It represents the

influence of belonging to a discriminated group which is not due to income discrimination.

Secondly I analyze the impact of the respondent’s attitude towards religion (i.e. to believe in a

god or to be atheist) on his/her happiness. As I have already discussed, the extant literature agrees

on the fact that being a religious person increases happiness. I claim that in the case of India this

should not to be the general case for the population on average, given the religious conflicts that are

present in the country. I do not control for service attendance, because religious practices across the

different groups in India are too different to be effectively comparable.

Thirdly I analyze the effect of belonging to a specific denomination on individual happiness

for the whole sample (i.e. including both religious and non religious people). Fourthly I explore the

same effect for the sub-sample of people who self-declared to be religious. Since in India conflicts

are mainly religious, atheists and non-religious9 people in general should be external to the

conflicts, and thus their presence in the sample should have a diluting result on the magnitude of the

effect of religious affiliation when only religious people are considered.

An eventual further step is to analyze happiness controlling for the State where the responder

lives. Since India is composed by relatively very rich and very poor states, and since each state has

some (though reduced) legislative autonomy, this additional set of controls aims at capturing “state

effects”. This is important, because some denominations are concentrated in specific states (for

example the Sikhs in Punjab and the Catholics in Pondicherry10), with the potential consequence of

exacerbating the conflict with Hindus and/or increasing the happiness of the members of the

minority who feel safer because more numerous. However the goal of including state dummies is to

better isolate the effect of membership to a religious minority.

9 The WVS identifies three categories: atheists, religious and non-religious (basically agnostics). 10 Here for concentration I do not mean that the majority of the members of a given denomination live in a specific state. I mean that in some states a denomination represents a share of population larger than the Indian average. The only exceptions are Punjab (where the majority is Sikh) and Pondicherry (where the majority is Catholic). However the WVS includes Pondicherry four different other states for statistical purposes.

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4. Results In tables 3 and 3bis11 I regresses income on education, age, gender (male), the size if the town

where the interviewee lives, his/her religious denomination and the State where he/she lives. The

sample is divided in two sub-samples: the first collects only people with at most vocational

education, while the second collects all the individuals who have at least completed a secondary

school allowing them to access the university. The results show that the members of the Muslim

community have an average income lower than the members of the other religious denominations,

although the level of significance is lower for the more educated sub-sample than for the other. This

implies that wage discrimination slightly decreases with education; nevertheless, I interpret these

results as a sign of discrimination against the Muslim community. Of course, given the conflict

between Muslims and Hindus, the effects of the discrimination involve aspects of people’s life other

than income. For this reason, after proving that the Muslims are actually discriminated in India, I

study happiness rather than income, because the former is a more complete measure of individual

well-being than income is.

Table 4 shows that the religious attitude of the individual has no significant effect on his/her

behaviour, although the sign of the coefficient for being religious is positive (but very small as the

marginal effect). This result is mainly due to the presence of different effects of religiosity on

happiness: as the following tables show being Muslim is source of unhappiness. It may be the case

that to be a religious person within the Hindu community increases happiness, but this effect is

counterbalanced by the negative influence exerted by religiosity on people who are members of

other religious denominations (first of all Islam). Notice that all the other considered controls have

the expected sign and both the coefficient and the marginal effect are significant. Income and

education contribute positively as well as being female. It is interesting to notice that not only being

unemployed, but also having a full-time job is source of unhappiness.

In the regressions presented in Table 5 I introduce the religious denominations. The first two

columns of the table show the results for the whole sample, while the third and fourth focus on the

sub-sample of people who self-define “religious persons”. The results partially confirm the initial

hypothesis and suggest some further remarks. The members of the Muslim community, as well as

the Jewish12, are more likely to be less happy than the Hindus. For Sikhs, there is a positive and

11 In order to reduce the number and the dimension of the tables, here I present only the most relevant marginal effects. The complete tables are available upon request to the author. 12 The very small number (9) of Jewish included in the sample undermines the robustness and reliability of this result. In addition they are very secularized: 60% of them declare not to feel as a religious person, though they associate to the Jewish community. This contributes to explain why the coefficient associated to this denomination looses significance passing from the whole sample to the sub-sample composed only by religious people.

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large probability of being happier than the Hindus; however this is a “Punjab effect”, in the sense

that Sikhs are likely to be happier than Hindus in Punjab only. When the regression is re-estimated

excluding Punjab from the sample13, the coefficient loses its significance (but keeps the sign).

Support for this interpretation is given by Table 6, where also a dummy is included for “living in

Punjab”; in this case the coefficient for the religious affiliation (to the Sikh community) is no longer

significant, whilst the dummy for Punjab is. This means that belonging to the majority group is per

se source of happiness, according with my initial claim. There are several possible explanations for

this result: one is that people are happier if they live in an environment where their traditions and

values are shared; another is that, in presence of a conflict based on religion, being member of the

local majority group offers protection from discrimination and decreases the probability of being

attacked by the other group.

Eventually the Catholics are more likely to be happier than the Hindus are, especially in the

“only-religious-people” sub-sample. I have to highlight that in the former French and Portuguese

territories14 the Catholics represent the majority of the population, and therefore it is very likely that

the “Punjab effect” holds also there. This effect might be prevailing on any other possible negative

influence on happiness, derived from living in a federated state, where Catholics are a minority.

However, the extant literature on religious conflicts in India does not provide any information

useful to interpret this result clearly.

In the regressions presented in table 6 I include dummies for the federated states where the

interviewes were conduced15; the previous results are basically confirmed. In this table the

coefficient for Punjab is significant, while that for Sikh is not; this is just a confirmation of the fact

that belonging to a local (winning) majority increases happiness. Excluding respondents living in

Punjab from the sample, the dummy for being Sikh looses its significance: Sikhs are a minority in

all the other federated states where they are present; there being member of the Sikh community is

no longer source of unhappiness, after the end of the conflict against the Hindus. When I control for

both dummies I isolate the effect of being Sikh outside Punjab, which is not significant (i.e. Sikhs

are not happier or more unhappy than Hindus). Muslims are not the majority in any state, therefore

13 These results are not shown here, but they are available upon request to the author. I any case I think that the evidence from Table 5 is sufficient to support my interpretation: when a dummy for living in Punjab is introduced in the regression, it comes out that living there increases the probability of being very happy, while belonging to the Sikh community is no longer significant (although the sign of the coefficient is still positive). 14 Today the federal territories of Pondicherry and of Daman and Diu. In the WVS data, Daman and Diu is included in Kerala, due to the few observations available for the territory. Pondicherry is included in four different federated states. As a consequence I am not able to control for the “Punjab effect” in the case of the Catholic community. 15 Muslims are concentrated (in the sense that they represent a share of population larger than the average for all India) in Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal (in addition to Jammu and Kashmir). Jews are concentrated in Maharashtra, Catholics in Assam (in addition to Pondicherry and Diman and Diu). Moreover Haryana is significantly “more Hindu” than the average of India. Eventually Jharkhand is the most fragmented state in terms of religious denominations.

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also when introducing state dummies the coefficient of the religious denomination keeps being

significant.

In Table 7 political orientation and the size of the town where the interviewee lives are

introduced as controls. While the interviewee’s political orientation does not exert any significant

effect on the feeling of happiness, the size of the town does. The sign is in accordance with my

expectation: the smaller the town, the happier the person. Eventually it is worthy to notice that

happiness has increased overt the time: the sign of the wave variable is always positive and

significant both for the whole sample and for the sub-sample of religious-only people.

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5. Conclusions As a complement of the existent literature on religiosity and happiness, this paper provides

evidence that being member of a religious group is not always source of happiness. It has been

widely shown that a positive religious attitude increases individual happiness in different ways; but

this happens in those environments, where a specific religious affiliation is not source of (emotional

or/and physical) conflict. Also in “difficult situations” like life in Israel, the mutual support deriving

from the members of the own group exceeds the daily fear. However so far this has been proved or

in peaceful contexts (U.S.A. and Europe) or for majority groups (like the Jews in Israel), whilst the

effect of belonging to a minority in a tense situation has not been taken into account.

Considering contemporary India, this paper shows that specific affiliations to minority groups

are source of unhappiness among members in presence of conflicts. Although this result is not

surprising per se, it has never been empirically shown with reference to religious groups. Given the

complexity of the Indian case the post-independence governments have often acted in order to

appease the conflicts. The creation of a federated state for the Sikhs, Punjab, is one of the most

relevant efforts in this direction and allows for a deep investigation of the problem.

The results of the paper show that being member of a minority is cause of unhappiness only

when the group is in conflict against another and it is not concentrated in specific territories (in the

specific case Muslims and Hindus). Differently when the minority is concentrated in some regions16

so that it represents a local majority (as in the case of the Catholics in former French and Portuguese

colonies and of the Sikhs in Punjab), . Muslims are among the most discriminated religious groups

in India, where they are spread almost evenly and they are also the least happy community in India.

This finding is supported also by the coefficients of the dummies associated to the federated states:

the higher the religious fragmentation of a state, the lower the happiness of a resident.

The results of the paper support the government’s policy of creation of Punjab: not only this

solved the conflict between Hindus and Sikhs, but has also created favourable conditions for Sikhs’

happiness. Following this example the creation of other religious-based states could help the

existing conflict(s) conflicts to end. This is not equivalent to the creation of ghettos: India is already

a federal republic and if a religious-based federalism is able to improve people’s happiness and to

appease conflicts, this strategy should be pursued. However national and international political

pressures can oppose to it: a new Muslim state in India could be seen as a new base for international 16 I am referring to regions representing individual administrative entities (such as Punjab and Pondicherry): in this case the group which is a global minority, but a local majority, is able to implement legal acts to preserve and defend traditional habits and rules. In turn this helps to rule out discrimination against the members of the group.

15

terrorist groups. In this case India could be more stable in the present situation, trading off some

happiness against internal and external security and the experience of Pakistan in this sense is rather

negative than positive.

16

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20

Table 2. Percentage of responders who deem religiousfaith to be an important quality for their children

Denomination Percentage p-value*

Christians 49.07 1*10-6

Hindus 34.28 -Muslims 53.83 1*10-6

Sikhs 57.67 1*10-4

* T-test of the figure of the specific denomination against Hindus

Table 1. Indian population by religiousaffiliation (percentage figures)

Hindu 81.4Muslim 12.4Sikh 1.9Catholic 1.1Protestant 1.1Buddhist 0.8Jain 0.4Jew 0.2Orthodox 0.2Others 0.5Source: Indian Ministry of Statistics

21

Table 3. Income discrimination. Sub-sample of people whose education is at most vocational. Ordered logit analysis

Coefficient(score = 5) (score = 7) (score = 9)

Male -0.047 -0.004 -0.001 -0.001(0.078) (0.006) (0.001) (0.001)

Age 0.007 6*10-4 0.001 0.001(0.003)** (2*10-4)** (5*10-4)** (4*10-4)**

Size of town -0.039 -0.003 -0.001 -5*10-4

(0.020)* (0.001)* (3*10-4)* (3*10-4)*Jew -0.223 -0.015 -0.003 -0.003

(1.265) (0.078) (0.017) (0.014)Muslim -0.309 -0.020 -0.005 -0.004

(0.121)*** (0.008)*** (0.002)*** (0.001)***Christian -0.156 -0.010 -0.002 -0.002

(0.241) (0.016) (0.004) (0.003)Sikh -0.562 -0.033 -0.007 -0.006

(0.342)* (0.017)* (0.004)* (0.003)**Andra Pradesh 1.932 0.141 0.063 0.064

(0.730)*** (0.028)*** (0.037)* (0.048)Assam 0.759 0.060 0.017 0.015

(0.724) (0.062) (0.022) (0.020)Bihar 1.064 0.085 0.026 0.023

(0.721) (0.059) (0.024) (0.023)Gujarat 1.884 0.138 0.062 0.063

(0.722)*** (0.028)*** (0.037)* (0.048)Haryana 2.703 0.125 0.106 0.148

(0.741)*** (0.039)*** (0.035)*** (0.096)Jharkhand 1.393 0.111 0.041 0.039

(0.720)* (0.048)** (0.032) (0.035)Kmataka 1.159 0.093 0.030 0.027

(0.719) (0.058) (0.027) (0.027)Kerala 1.657 0.127 0.052 0.052

(0.783)** (0.040)*** (0.038) (0.047)Madhya Pradesh 1.963 0.141 0.065 0.068

(0.732)*** (0.025)*** (0.038)* (0.051)Maharashtra 1.664 0.129 0.047 0.045

(0.722)** (0.045)*** (0.031) (0.035)Orrisa 2.789 0.130 0.107 0.150

(0.746)*** (0.038)*** (0.035)*** (0.094)*Punjab 3.170 0.096 0.121 0.214

(0.759)*** (0.058)* (0.024)*** (0.124)*Rajasthan 1.404 0.112 0.039 0.037

(0.732)* (0.052)** (0.031) (0.033)Uttar Pradesh 0.854 0.066 0.018 0.015

(0.718) (0.059) (0.019) (0.017)Tamil Nadu 2.372 0.140 0.089 0.107

(0.729)*** (0.017)*** (0.039)** (0.074)West Bengala 2.203 0.148 0.075 0.082

(0.728)*** (0.016)*** (0.038)** (0.057)

Observations 2092Pseudo R-squared 0.034Log pseudolikelihood -3655.52

Marginal effects

22

Table 3bis. Income discrimination. Sub-sample of people who completed at least a secondary schoolallowing to access university. Ordered logit analysis

Coefficient(score = 5) (score = 7) (score = 9)

Male -0.304 -0.017 -0.018 -0.004(0.064)*** (0.04)*** (0.004)*** (0.001)***

Age 0.010 6*10-4 6*10-4 1*10-4(0.003)*** (2*10-4)*** (1*10-4)*** (4*10-5)***

Size of town 0.040 0.002 0.002 5*10-4(0.013)*** (8*10-4)*** (8*10-4)*** (2*10-4)***

Jew -1.121 -0.084 -0.044 -0.008(0.928) (0.068) (0.023)* (0.004)**

Muslim -0.218 -0.014 -0.012 -0.002(0.128)* (0.009) (0.006)* (0.001)*

Christian -0.185 -0.012 -0.010 -0.002(0.0192) (0.013) (0.010) (0.002)

Sikh 0.321 0.015 0.020 0.004(0.229) (0.008)* (0.015) (0.004)

Andra Pradesh -0.567 -0.038 -0.028 -0.005(0.260)** (0.020)* (0.011)** (0.002)**

Assam -1.671 -0.120 -0.056 -0.010(0.0276)*** (0.017)*** (0.005)*** (0.002)***

Bihar 0.153 0.008 0.009 0.002(0.258) (0.013) (0.016) (0.003)

Gujarat -0.520 -0.037 -0.026 -0.005(0.250)** (0.019)* (0.011)** (0.002)**

Haryana 0.488 0.020 0.032 0.007(0.280)** (0.006)*** (0.020) (0.005)

Jharkhand -1.136 -0.085 -0.045 -0.008(0.272)*** (0.020)*** (0.007)*** (0.002)***

Kmataka -1.042 -0.077 -0.044 -0.008(0.250)*** (0.019)*** (0.008)*** (0.002)***

Kerala -0.541 -0.038 -0.026 -0.005(0.279)* (0.022)* (0.012)** (0.002)**

Madhya Pradesh 0.179 0.010 0.011 0.002(0.264) (0.013) (0.016) (0.004)

Maharashtra -0590 -0.042 -0.029 -0.006(0.252)** (0.020)** (0.011)*** (0.002)***

Orrisa -0.121 -0.008 -0.007 -0.001(0.287) (0.019) (0.015) (0.003)

Punjab 0.283 0.014 0.018 0.004(0.261) (0.010) (0.017) (0.004)

Rajasthan -0.577 -0.041 -0.028 -0.005(0.262)** (0.021)** (0.011)*** (0.002)***

Uttar Pradesh -1.148 -0.087 -0.052 -0.010(0.244)*** (0.018)*** (0.009)*** (0.002)***

Tamil Nadu -0.347 -0.023 -0.018 -0.004(0.248) (0.018) (0.012) (0.002)

West Bengala -0.258 -0.017 -0.014 -0.003(0.247) (0.017) (0.012) (0.002)

Observations 3348Pseudo R-squared 0.022Log pseudolikelihood -6728.71

Marginal effects

23

Table 4. Happiness and religious attitude. Ordered probit analysisCoefficient Marginal effect

(score=3)

State of health 0.524 0.162(0.024)*** (0.009)***

Income 0.042 0.013(0.010)*** (0.003)***

Male -0.113 -0.036(0.038)*** (0.012)***

Education 0.027 0.008(0.011)** (0.003)**

Religious 0.008 0.002(0.047) (0.014)

Atheist 0.092 0.029(0.147) (0.048)

Unemployed -0.230 -0.065(0.068)*** (0.018)***

Full-time employed -0.176 -0.051(0.043)*** (0.012)***

Married 0.040 0.012(0.046) (0.014)

Student -0.093 -0.028(0.053)* (0.015)*

Age -0.003 -1*10-5

(0.007) (3*10-5)Age2 5*10-5 2*10-5

(8*10-5) (3*10-5)Wave 0.203 0.063

(0.063)*** (0.019)***

Observations 4172Pseudo R-squared 0.079Log pseudo-likelihood -4440.77

24

Table 5. Happiness and religious denominations. Ordered probit analysis

Coefficient Marginal effect Coefficient Marginal effect(score=3) (religious only) (score = 3)

State of health 0.511 0.161 0.507 0,163(0.024)*** (0.009)*** (0.027)*** (0.010)***

Income 0.043 0.014 0.051 0.016(0.010)*** (0.003)*** (0.011)*** (0.004)***

Male -0.115 -0.038 -0.093 -0.031(0.038)*** (0.012)*** (0.043)** (0.014)**

Education 0.021 0.007 0.004 0.001(0.011)* (0.004)* (0.013) (0.004)

Buddhist -0.301 -0.084 -0.150 -0.046(0.176)* (0.043)* (0.240) (0.069)

Catholic 0.194 0.065 0.268 0.093(0.110)* (0.39)* (0.119)** (0.044)**

Jainist 0.345 0.120 0.329 0.116(0.418) (0.157) (0.421) (0.159)

Jewsh -0.609 -0.148 -0.085 -0.026(0.307)*** (0.053)*** (0.059) (0.017)

Muslim -0.196 -0.057 -0.219 -0.081(0.061)*** (0.016)*** (0.065)*** (0.017)***

Orthodox 0.001 3*10-4 0.099 0.033(0.295) (0.093) (0.388) (0.132)

Protestant -0.204 -0.057 -0.125 -0.038(0.196) (0.053) (0.222) (0.065)

Sikh 0.583 0.212 0.650 0.241(0.168)*** (0.067)*** (0.182)*** (0.073)***

Other religious denominations -0.115 -0.035 -0.113 -0.035(0.169) (0.049) (0.201) (0.059)

Unemployed -0.210 -0.061 -0.174 -0.053(0.069)*** (0.019)*** (0.078)** (0.022)**

Full-time employed -0.157 -0.047 -0.140 -0.043(0.043)*** (0.013)*** (0.049)*** (0.015)***

Married 0.082 0.025 0.105 0.032(0.048)* (0.014)* (0.054)** (0.016)**

Student -0.081 -0.025 -0.098 -0.030(0.054) (0.016) (0.061)* (0.018)*

Age -0.007 -0.002 -0.012 -0.004(0.008) (0.002) (0.009) (0.003)

Age2 8*10-5 3*10-5 (0.001 4*10-5

(9*10-5) (3*10-5) (0.001) 3*10-5

Wave 0.136 0.043 0.044 0.014(0.065)** (0.020)** (0.074) (0.024)

Observations 4131 3300Pseudo R-squared 0.081 0.081Log pseudolikelihood -4422.35 -3502.15

25

26

Table 7. Religious affiliation and happiness. Including political orientation and the size of town.Ordered probit analysis

Coefficient Marginal effect Coefficient Marginal effect(score=3) (religious only) (score = 3)

Political orientation (l. to r.) 0,005 0.001 0.007 0.002(0.009) (0.003) (0.010) (0.003)

Size of town -0.021 -0.006 -0.025 -0.008(0.011)* (0.003)* (0.013)** (0.004)**

State of health 0.479 0.148 0.463 0.149(0.028)*** (0.009)*** (0.032)*** (0.012)***

Income 0.038 0.011 0.047 0.015(0.013)*** (0.004)*** (0.014)*** (0.004)***

Male -0.144 -0.045 -0.133 -0.045(0.046)*** (0.015)*** (0.052)*** (0.017)***

Education 0.033 0.010 0.030 0.010(0.015)** (0.005)** (0.017)* (0.005)*

Buddhist 0.066 0.021 0.449 0.162(0.191) (0.061) (0.269)* (0.105)

Catholic 0.157 0.051 0.185 0.063(0.123) (0.042) (0.133) (0.048)

Jainist -0.011 -0.003 -0.063 -0.020(0.614) (0.189) (0.624) (0.192)

Jewsh -0.646 -0.151 -0.330 -0.094(0.426)** (0.068)** (0.073)*** (0.018)***

Muslim -0.217 -0.062 -0.376 -0.105(0.083)*** (0.022)*** (0.092)*** (0.023)***

Orthodox 0.215 0.071 0.429 0.152(0.250) (0.088) (0.280) (0.108)

Protestant -0.171 -0.050 -0.139 -0.043(0.258) (0.070) (0.272) (0.079)

Sikh 0.675 0.246 0.721 0.270(0.197)*** (0.078)*** (0.215)*** (0.086)***

Other religious denominations -0.138 -0.041 -0.224 -0.067(0.167) (0.046) (0.200) (0.054)

Unemployed -0.304 -0.085 -0.276 -0.080(0.087)*** (0.022)*** (0.104)*** (0.027)***

Full-time employed -0.135 -0.041 -0.132 -0.041(0.051)*** (0.015)*** (0.058)** (0.018)**

Married 0.072 0.022 0.053 0.017(0.057) (0.017) (0.066) (0.021)

Student -0.085 -0.026 -0.158 -0.048(0.071) (0.021) (0.081)*** (0.023)**

Age -0.012 -0.004 -0.018 -0.006(0.010) (0.003) (0.011) (0.004)

Age2 1*10-4 4*10-5 2*10-4 6*10-5(1*10-4) (4*10-5) (1*10-4) (4*10-5)

Wave 0.239 0.074 0.240 0.078(0.079)*** (0.024)*** (0.092)*** (0.029)***

Observations 2792 2178Pseudo R-squared 0.074 0.077Log pseudolikelihood -2997.85 -2311.04

Recent working papers The complete list of working papers is can be found at http://polis.unipmn.it/pubbl

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