The recent tragedy in Haiti, and the many ways in which we are able to donate money and supplies to help those so horribly affected, got me to thinking about the issue of charitable giving and the groups who are most likely to help out.
Follow me over the jump for some thoughts.
If you ask the average person whether religious or non-religious people give more money to charitable causes, the answer you're likely to get—even from the non-religious—is that "people of faith" give far more of their money and time to help others out. And that notion fits well with the model of "Christian charity" and service to others that is part of so many stories in the New Testament. Likewise, charity and compassion for the poor are a central tenet of Judaism and Islam.
So, the thought goes, to compare such a deeply held philosophical commitment to charity, how can non-religious members of society be expected to come close to giving of themselves and their money?
Until this past decade, such a belief would not have been founded on anyting other than "common knowledge", but a study done in 2003 by the Hoover Institute and published in Policy Review attempted to put this fact to the test.
According to the author of the study, Arthur C. Brooks:
Using data from a large survey conducted in 2000, I investigate differences in charitable giving and volunteering between secular and religious people. I look for explanations for these differences in the current debates about social capital, the role of government in social policy, and the separation of church and state. Finally, I explore the implications of charitable giving differences for policy and politics.1
The report is worth a read, as it covers the methodology used and the results—it also includes some analysis of the "whys and wherefores" of the results he found, which are:
The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions.
As if this damning result were not enough, Brooks closes his paper with a bit of what comes close to patronizing behavior, saying:
Simply put, people may be more likely to learn charity inside a church, synagogue, or mosque than outside. If charity is indeed a learned behavior, it may be that houses of worship are only one means (albeit an especially efficacious one) to teach it. Secularists interested in increasing charitable giving and volunteering among their ranks might spend some effort thinking of alternative ways to foster these habits.
The Hoover Institute study has been rebutted in several ways, primarily based on the inherent weaknesses of self-reporting of "religious participation" of those interviewed for the study, and the danger in associating such self-reported "church attendance" with "religious participation", depth of faith, or the tenets of the faith adhered to by the participant.
In addition to the potential logical flaws of the study, as an atheist I have always been a little suspect of common knowledge or studies which tend to support the "atheists have no moral compass" position of some religious adherents.
What got me to thinking about this topic today was the receipt of an email from Michael Shermer which requested donations to Haiti through Richard Dawkins's organization. Dawkins, an outspoken atheist, has agreed to forward such donations to one of two aid organizations which are not religiously affiliated—Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross.
Dawkins has also agreed to offset, from his own pocket, any costs inherent in the donation process (Paypal fees, for instance), in order to make sure all dollars go to those who need it.
I've made my donation through Dawkins, but decided to see if any further analysis or studies had been done to confirm or disconfirm the Hoover study.
And, I found one such study here, by Catherine C. Eckel of Virginia Tech and Philip J. Grossman of Saint Cloud State University, titled Giving to Secular Causes by the Religious and Nonreligious: An Experimental Test of the Responsiveness of Giving to Subsidies and published in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.
The summary as provided by the authors:
Although evidence indicates that religious persons are more generous on average than nonreligious persons, little work has been done to determine if this greater generosity is a general pattern or is, rather, specific to church-based institutions. Limited research addresses if, or how, religious and nonreligious givers respond to subsidies. This article uses experimental data to examine differences in the amount and pattern of giving to secular charities in response to subsidies by self-identified religious and nonreligious participants.
Now, while this study is not a direct rebuttal to the methods or results of the Hoover study, it does give an atheist hope. Giving in response to subsidies is comparable between the religious and non-religious. There is room, however, for improvement by us non-religious folk:
The results indicate no significant difference in either the amount or pattern of giving or in the response to subsidies by religious and nonreligious participants; however, giving by religious participants is significantly more responsive to income changes than giving by nonreligious participants.
One other interesting article I came across, published in the Annals of Family Medicine, and titled Do Religious Physicians Disproportionately Care for the Underserved? and which is of direct relevance to the situation in Haiti says this:
PURPOSE Religious traditions call their members to care for the poor and marginalized, yet no study has examined whether physicians’ religious characteristics are associated with practice among the underserved. This study examines whether physicians’ self-reported religious characteristics and sense of calling in their work are associated with practice among the underserved.
CONCLUSIONS Physicians who are more religious do not appear to disproportionately care for the underserved.
So, not to bash the religious among us, but I am somewhat proud to know that those of us who do not profess a belief in a Supreme Being can still have a strong desire to help our fellow man when the need arises.
Your thoughts?