Work Hard or Pray Hard? Religion and Attitudes toward Work
Prince Eyi-Mensah, Zhong Chunping

Abstract
In the last couple of years there have been efforts made to bring understanding to human behavior. Economists have played a major role in that respect, through their formal arguments on issues like identifying the relationship between religion and economic attitudes. We picked a leaf out of that book and studied the impact of religion on attitudes of individuals toward work. We found that an increase in the frequency of religious service attendance by individuals promoted a positive attitude towards work. The degree of religiosity of individuals was also found to promote a positive attitude towards work. Some religious denominations were found to foster the view that work was very important but others influenced the opposite view in their followers. Hindus, Jews and Catholics all had a positive attitude toward work, while Buddhists and Orthodox Christians were influenced negatively in their view towards work. Results of the study proved robust to the frequency with which individuals prayed.

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