The Unorthodox Orthodox? Religion, Compromise, and Attitudes Toward Women in the Labor Market

Talk by Mrdjan Mladjan (EBS Business School) as part of the Research Seminar Series of the IOS Economics Department.

We study the effect of adherence to Eastern Orthodox Christianity on attitudes toward women's participation in the workforce. To do so, we first develop a novel theoretical framework that defines religion as a constraint on one's attitudes and actions. Next, building on research in social psychology, we argue that the four most numerous religious denominations (Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Islam) differ in the extent to which religious believers consult external ideas and opinions to shape their own opinions. We show that those of Orthodox belief are most likely to seek and empathize with others' ideas and beliefs, implying that Orthodox followers will also have the most liberal attitudes toward women's work compared to the other three denominations. To test our hypotheses, we exploit the last five waves of the World Values Survey (1995-2022) and utilize four broad groups of questions as dependent variables: motivation for labor market participation, social constraints, family constraints, and incentives to join the labor market. The findings align with our theoretical prediction and indicate that Orthodox Christians have attitudes most supportive of women's work. Our findings are not driven by differences in religiosity, the prevalence of communism and differences in governmental institutions, or migration, and highlight the link between religion and attitudes toward women's work.