Premium
Suicide and Religion: New Evidence on the Differences Between Protestantism and Catholicism
Author(s) -
Torgler Benno,
Schaltegger Christoph
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal for the scientific study of religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1468-5906
pISSN - 0021-8294
DOI - 10.1111/jssr.12117
Subject(s) - protestantism , religiosity , commit , church attendance , suicide rates , religious studies , attendance , criminology , sociology , social psychology , psychology , suicide prevention , poison control , political science , law , philosophy , medicine , environmental health , database , computer science
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.