The Impact of Fundamentalism on Women's Socioeconomic Attainment

这是一项关于宗教信仰对女性社会经济成就的影响的研究。妇女对父母适当的家庭角色的意识形态信念以及非产妇育儿的影响是其劳动力市场行为的关键决定因素。然而，很少有研究关注这些信念的制度来源。保守的宗教机构尤其提倡禁止母亲市场行为的信仰体系，并支持一种传统的家庭结构，在这种结构中，母亲专注于育儿，而不是其他追求。这些原教旨主义宗教机构在美国母亲的劳动力参与率总体上大幅上升的时期里，实力非但没有减弱，反而有所增强。本研究项目侧重于原教旨主义宗教意识形态和机构参与对母亲的劳动力参与和工资获得的直接和间接影响。这个项目试图在三个一般领域回答几个关键问题：(1)原教旨主义的宗教信仰对妇女参与劳动力和获得工资是否重要？性别意识形态是否中介了宗教参与对市场结果的影响，或者宗教参与(及其产生的社会网络)是否影响行为，而与个人的性别意识形态无关？(2)原教旨主义活动的生命周期时机如何影响成年人的行为？起源于家庭的宗教信仰和习俗是否具有挥之不去的影响(也许是因为无法通过高等教育获得市场技能)，还是目前的信仰和习俗最具说服力？(3)原教旨主义究竟如何影响女性的工资--通过其对生育率、早期家庭形成和获得教育的影响，还是直接通过其对产后就业量、性别类型和就业强度的影响？这些问题将通过全国纵向抽样调查(全国家庭和家庭调查)进行调查，以确定儿童和成人原教旨主义活动对美国妇女获得和使用可销售技能的影响的强度和方向。使用多组比较的结构方程模型将被用来检验原教旨主义教派从属关系、宗教信仰和宗教活动对已婚和未婚妇女参与劳动力的可能性和参与所获得的工资的影响。由于性别工资差距一直顽固存在，而母亲在经济上赡养孩子的义务随着时间的推移而增加，关于母亲工资较低的社会原因而不是经济原因的辩论仍然很重要。特别是，这项研究可以阐明，母亲未能达到与父亲同等的工资在多大程度上可以归因于宗教机构对妇女决定优先照顾母亲而不是准备和参与市场工作的影响。这项研究还解决了社会学中的基本理论问题，即在结构性经济压力下，文化意识形态的自主力量塑造了行为，要求他们做出不同的行为。

This is a study of the influence of religious affiliation on the socioeconomic attainment of women. Women's ideological beliefs about appropriate family roles for mothers and fathers and the effects of nonmaternal child care are crucial determinants of their labor market behavior. However, little research has attended to the institutional sources of those beliefs. Conservative religious institutions, in particular, promote belief systems that proscribe mothers' market behavior and support a traditional family structure in which mothers concentrate on childrearing to the exclusion of other pursuits. These fundamentalist religious institutions have been gaining rather than losing strength during the period in which mothers' labor force participation has risen dramatically in the United States overall. This research project focuses on the direct and indirect impacts of fundamentalist religious ideologies and institutional participation on mothers' labor force participation and wage attainment. This project seeks to answer several crucial questions in three general areas: (1) Does fundamentalist religiosity matter for women's labor force participation and wage attainment? Does gender ideology mediate the impact of religious participation on market outcomes, or does religious participation (and the social networks it spawns) affect behavior irrespective of individuals' gender ideology? (2) How does the life-cycle timing of fundamentalist activity affect adult behavior? Do family-of-origin religious beliefs and practices have lingering effects (perhaps through the failure to acquire marketable skills via higher education) or are current beliefs and practices most compelling? (3) How precisely does fundamentalism affect women's wages - indirectly through its effects on fertility, early family formation, and the acquisition of education or directly through its effects on the amount, gender type, and intensity of employment following motherhood? These questions will be investigated with a national longitudinal sample (The National Survey of Families and Households) to determine the strength and direction of effects of both childhood and adult fundamentalist activity on the acquisition and use of marketable skills among American women. Structural equation modeling using multiple group comparisons will be used to test the influence of fundamentalist denominational affiliation, religious beliefs, and religious activities on the likelihood of labor force participation, and the wages obtained from participation, for married and unmarried women. Because the gender wage gap has been stubbornly persistent, while the obligations of mothers to financially support their children have been increasing over time, debates about the social rather than economic causes of mothers' lower wages continue to be important. In particular, this research can shed light on the extent to which mothers' failure to achieve wages on par with fathers can be attributed to the influence of religious institutions on women's decisions to prioritize mothering over preparation for and engagement in market work. This research also addresses fundamental theoretical questions in sociology about the autonomous power of cultural ideology to mold behavior in the face of structural economic pressures to behave otherwise.