Monday, October 01, 2007
Protestant countries have higher employment rates…
Right, this is certain to throw the cat in amongst the pigeons. Before you read it, can I just remind people of the site’s commenting rules. Dr Feldmann, a lecturer in Bath University’s Department of Economics and International Development explains why he thinks his research shows a gap between employment rates in Protestant and Catholic countries.
...the impact of religion may be indirect, for example, in helping shape the national culture of a given society.” He continued: “In its early days, Protestantism promoted the virtue of hard and diligent work amongst its adherents, who judged one another by conformity to this standard. Originally, an intense devotion to one’s work was meant to assure oneself that one was predestined for salvation. Although the belief in predestination did not last more than a generation or two after the Reformation, the effect on work ethics continued. “This was particularly conducive to the rise of modern capitalism. It stimulated entrepreneurial spirits and helped to assimilate workers into the factory system. Most protestants today are likely to work not in order to attain certainty of salvation but because their parents taught them the virtue of work. The Protestant virtue of hard and diligent work has become part of a national culture of the relevant countries.”
Of course this is just one possible conditioning factor. Traditional extended family structures, including higher marriage rates and low cohabitation rates also persist in Catholic southern Europe, whilst the largely Protestant Nordic countries have migrated far from traditional family norms.
Mick Fealty @ 03:44 PM
Of course, this is all sensible stuff.
Protestantism also encouraged a healthy distrust of hierarchical structures, a questioning disposition, and a distaste for tradition - all positives when economic progress was in hand.Of course, Protestantism isn’t the end of history and the lessons and culture of Protestantism are applied wholesale in Catholic countries. The Bavarians are no priest-ridden slouches, for example.
My own take on the Celtic Tiger is that one of the reasons for it’s appearance was the widespread adoption of Protestant values in the Republic in the last twenty years coupled with the old Irish Catholic ‘let’s talk and do a deal’ way of life which had previously not moved from the cattle mart.
Paddy was never short of ‘soft skills’.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 04:19 PMMick, it’s colder up north so perhaps that’s an incentive to work - or to drink.
I suppose the concept of personal salvation encouraged greater responsibility as did the ‘republican’ church structures.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 04:20 PMApart from the (sort-of) empirical support, is this idea any different from “The Protestant ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” by Max Weber published in 1920.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 04:21 PMNow it may just be me, and there doesn’t seem to be a link to the methodology, but doesn’t the fact that say, South America and South East Asia are not as prosperous tend to skew this somewhat?
Never mind other factors like climate.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 05:05 PMThe only concept that Christianity can fairly claim credit for creating is inter-Christian sectarianism. People work because nature is organised to promote that dynamic, and not because some religion happened upon promoting the ‘work ethic’ tens of thousands years too late. Folks work harder because new systems of production offer greater rewards for extra effort (I think this is called ‘overtime’ or ‘double jobbing’) or simply demands hard work (with an entrepreneur quickly discovering that 9 to 5 is a distant memory). Ergo, work is a function of evolutionary dynamics, political, social and business systems, etc, and has as much to do with religious imperatives and exhortations as preaching peace or other commandants when Christian societies are among the world’s greatest warmongers. For example, the Catholic religion is against sex outside of marriage. It is also against the use of condoms. Those who argue that the church’s position promotes STDs make their argument on similarly flawed logic. Firstly, it assumes folks listen to the church. And secondly, assuming that folks listen to the church, they would not be having sex outside of marriage in accordance with the church’s other instruction, and, ergo, would not be promoting STDs.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 05:08 PMJust to make the two points above less obscure:
If you intend to argue that your particular brand of voodoo has promoted something that is deemed to be good in society, then you need to show that the promotion is consistent with all other ‘good things’ that your voodoo promotes in terms of its effect on society, e.g. if your voodoo promotes charity, then is your society more charitable than other societies where your voodoo isn’t applicable? If it promotes peace, is your society more peaceful? If it isn’t, then why do you pick only one element from the multiplicity of elements that you proffer and proffer that as being a special case? Why is it only ‘work ethic’ that your voodoo encouraged your parishioners to practice to the claimed exceptional degree and not the other elements of said particular brand of voodoo?
Claims made either for or against a particular religion often disguise a sectarian agenda. That is why you will often hear people accuse the Catholic Church’s policy on condoms as being responsible for promoting AIDS and other diseases. The logic underlining this claim exposes its sectarianism. The argument is proffered as “Catholics don’t use condoms because they do what the church tells them. Then they get AIDS and die an awful death. Isn’t the Catholic church awful?” This, of course, misses the conflicting statement from the Catholic Church which is “Don’t have sex outside of marriage.” So, if, as is claimed, Catholics did as their church tells them, then they would not have sex outside of marriage and would not be exposed to fatal sexual diseases. The argument is sectarian because it is self-contradictory, exposing the actual agenda behind it. This comes back to the work ethic: people simply don’t do something because a church either tells them to do it or not to do it. Just as the sales of condoms in Ireland, a Catholic country, outstrips (no pun intended) England, a non-Catholic country, on a per-capita basis, so too is Ireland more productive than its non-Catholic neighbour on a per-capita basis. The facts don’t support the self-serving claims.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 06:00 PMOn the Celtic Tiger - surely the causation runs the other way as well - that capitalism makes protestants (’secular monks’)of us all, eg. commuting from Athy at 5am because you’re a slave to your mortgage.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 07:24 PMThis is a rather biazzare idea that Protestantism makes one work hard. Of course I am sure everyone has heard all the usual comments and we can all think of the stereotypes we were brought up with.
The original article includes the following quote “Originally, an intense devotion to one’s work was meant to assure oneself that one was predestined for salvation”
Well firstly not all protestants believe in predestination, secondly I would have thought that the calvanist concept of Perseverance of the Saints (essentially once saved always saved) would, if misunderstood, encourage laziness.
Indeed any religion suggesting that “works” of any kind increase the possibility of salvation would surely encourage hard work; whereas one which offered salvation without works would be less likely to.
If one looks at China and especially Japan I see no lack of work ethic: quite the reverse. There are also not many protestants. Without getting anti semitic Jews seem quite into work as well and they are not exactly protestants (well except when Isreali flags are flown in Prod areas).
I think kensei’s comment on the climate may be closer to the mark.
Still it is good to see that there are really odd people in Bath university with suitably biazzare views.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 07:51 PMThe Dubliner @ 06:00 PM:
Just as the sales of condoms in Ireland, a Catholic country, outstrips (no pun intended) England, a non-Catholic country, on a per-capita basis, so too is Ireland more productive than its non-Catholic neighbour on a per-capita basis.
1. Condom sales in the RoI: Could this disparity in any way be related to the reluctance and downright refusal of practising-RC medics to prescribe and pharmacies to dispense other means of contraception?
2. Those figures for GNP are dodgy in all kinds of ways. See:
(a) Irish output per capita (GDP) is now among the highest in the OECD while income per capita (GNP), a better measure of living standards, is close to the OECD average ... GDP (national output) is significantly greater than GNP (national income) due to the repatriation of profits and royalty payments by multinational firms based here. Generally, the GNP figure is the more appropriate metric for Ireland
and (perhaps not immediately relevant, but of significance):
Ireland consumes the same energy on a per capita basis as the EU 15 average. However, Ireland’s share of energy coming from renewable sources is one-third that of the EU 15 average, reflecting our high dependence on fossil fuels. Ireland ranks poorly in per capita carbon dioxide emissions and our rank is weakening further. Finally, the data suggest that Irish companies do not prioritise sustainable development as much as those in other countries do. [Source: National Competitiveness Council annual report for 2006; ]http://www.forfas.ie/](b) Irish labour productivity levels have risen substantially such that GNP per worker is now roughly equal to the EU average… Productivity growth, however, weakened since 2001, in line with the economic slowdown experienced in most developed economies… If and when the domestic economy recovers from the current slowdown, it is unlikely, for a number of reasons, that labour productivity growth can recover to the very high rates of the late 1990s... [Source: ]http://www.centralbank.ie/].
(c) As for intellectual product I refer to the OECD figures, as published by the US National Science Foundation:
Per capita output of Science&Engineering;articles, by selected country/economy: 2000–03 United Kingdom 796.48; Ireland 435.18.(d) Ireland is another country where GDP has to be read with care. Ireland’s position has risen up the GDP per head rankings since 1999, and is now in the top five countries in the OECD. This remarkable transformation has been put down to a mix of factors, of which inward investment in high value-added businesses is one. But does GDP per head accurately reflects Ireland’s actual wealth, since all that inward investment (and foreign labour) generates profits and other revenues, some of which inevitably flows back to the countries of origin?
Another measure, Gross National Income, accounts for these flows in and out of the country. For many countries, the flows tend to balance out, leaving little difference between GDP and GNI. But not so for Ireland, as outflows of profits and income, largely from global business giants located there, often exceed income flows back into the country. This means that in a GNI ranking, rather than being in the top five, Ireland drops to 17th. In other words, while Ireland produces a lot of income per inhabitant, GNI shows that less of it stays in the country than GDP might suggest. [Source: OECD Observer].
We need to be comparing like-with-like here. The RoI is where high-tech is the name of the game (6% of the GDP is accounted for by one firm, Dell), has a favourable age distribution, receives large swathes of subsidy from the EU to balance the Budget, but still has 4.7% inflation, and chooses to tax industry preferentially over individuals. It damned-well ought to show well. However, as the Economist briefing says: The property market is vulnerable to rising interest rates. Rates are expected to reach 4.25%, but could go higher. This would increase the chances of a sharp correction considerably. And as inflation will be higher than the euro area average, a continued gradual loss of competitiveness is expected.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 08:36 PMCatholics are lazy.
Come on Mick…
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 08:40 PMAs someone intimated, it’s a climate issue.
In a land where it is cloudy and miserable, is a person more inclined to work hard and earn enough to take holidays in the sun compared with a person in the sunny climes who does just enough to get by and spends more of their time lying around in the sun.
I admire the former and envy the latter.Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 09:04 PMPre Thatcher I double shifted at the coal mine Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. I attended college Tuesdays and Wednesday evening classes. I worked Saturadys as shut down electrician at a bakery and Sundays double time at the pit. Friday and Saturday nights I worked on a local club door.
Mid Thatcher we were homeless living on a campsite.
Post Thatcher we bought, for example, a foreclosure at 30 grand. Sold at 110 grand. And no double shift or sweat in sight.
The great social reformers are, Maggie Thatcher, Jack the Ripper, Arthur Daley and Del Trotter.
Give the west country uni time to catch up.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 09:25 PM‘The Dubliner’ is right to an extent. Christians are guilty of fighting between themselves. However, you can not employ people who do not apply or want to work. There may be social differences that people have studied but unemployment is the way it is because generally they do not want to work
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 09:46 PMThis is a rather biazzare idea that Protestantism makes one work hard. Of course I am sure everyone has heard all the usual comments and we can all think of the stereotypes we were brought up with.
Turgon I think it works the other way, NOT being a protestant makes you a lazy git! Not my theor mind but the theory seemingly put across in this article.
Personally I think it all comes down to how you were raised, if you were raised to believe hard work and know how would get you ahead in life then you work hard and strive for better. If you were raised to believe that you will not get ahead regardless of how hard you work because you are a certain religion race or creed, then you have no incentive to work hard to get ahead because you wont be getting ahead.
As for the Climate, the northern hemisphere has always produced more bountiful harvests then our southern neighbours it was the increased leisure time that these harvests created that allowed the northern countries to become more agressive in exporation and exploitation and infact what has lead to the world wide dominance of the european/north american culture and lifestyle.the southern climes may provide more pleasant winters but strictly speaking they do not provide better living conditions and in the pre industrial revolution they generally relied on a much more labour intensive systems to just keep ahead of the daily requirements. Which is one of the reasons slavery held on longer in the southern US and why it still holds in parts of Africa, Its cheaper to own the beasts of burden then it is to rent them.
Famines, while not unheard of in the north, are less likely to happen in the temperate zones than they are to happen in the tropical zones.
Its my belief s societies ability to produce excess rations and provide them with long term storage is the reason europe and north america has provided so much of the scientific break throughs in the modern era (even if more than a few of those inventions were stolen from other cultures and we only found a better way to exploit them re:gun powder and algebra)
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 10:57 PM“The Protestant virtue of hard and diligent work has become part of a national culture of the relevant countries....”
Then again, maybe not - there was an interesting programme on Channel 4 tonight which compared immigrant groups in the UK to each other and to indigenous brits, the upshot being catholic Poles work much harder than catholic Portuguese and protestant Brits.
But the most obviously silly claim by this academic is “..countries dominated by other religions, such as Catholicism, Islam and Buddhism are likely to have developed a national culture that does not put a high value on hard and diligent work” - considering that China is currently the workshop of the world should this in it’s proper perspective.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:03 PMPitty they didn’t have unemployment records before the reformation - then we could say that Protestantism caused an observable change in work ethic in those countries. But let’s see if we can dig into this.
So, the thesis says that if you take protestant countries (USA, Britain and the Nordics) and compare them against everyone else on the planet, you’ll see that protestants have a lower unemployment rate, and thus a better work ethic. Okay. Then let’s examine this.
Where preytell are the Protestant countries of Europe? They’re all in Northern Europe, right. Now this is a cultural grouping within Europe, and we are interested in culture. So we should start first with the wider group before jumping straight into Protestants.
Now the average unemployment in Northern Europe is 4.37% compared against the the whole of Europe, which is 9.1%, so we definately can tell that Northern European have a better work ethic (or at least lower unemployment). But let’s dig in.
If the thesis is true then the better work ethic of Northern Europeans is caused by Protestantism, not being from Northern Europe. So, let’s compare the Catholic countries of Northern Europe against the Protestant countires of Northern Europe. (This puts us a bit in of a pickle, because you there are only two Catholic countries in Northern Europe - but none the less ...)
Protestant:
Denmark: 3.3%
Finland: 7.0%
United Kingdom: 5.4%
Sweden: 5.6%
Norway: 3.5%
Latvia: 6.1%
Iceland: 1.3%
Estonia: 4.2%
---
Protestant average: 4.56%Catholic:
Lithuania: 2.9%
Republic of Ireland: 4.3%
---
Catholic average: 3.6%... ewww - ouch! Looks like to be Catholic in Northern Europe is to have a better work ethic!
So let’s revise the thesis. It is not Protestaism that has a better work ethic, but Northern Europeanism. In fact, within the Northern Europeans, the evidience is that Catholics have a better work ethic that Protestants.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:18 PMThe ILO is reporting that Ireland is second to the USA in terms of labour productivity per person.
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011022.shtml
It’s a significant gap all the same.
But as you notice when the amount of hours worked is factored in, Norway takes the lead, followed by USA then France.
One more for the Scandinavian model!
Ultimately, the Irish are working long hours, supporting the notion that Ireland appears to have much of this Protestant work ethic even though it is still fair to call it a homogenous Catholic country.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:30 PMUltimately, the Irish are working long hours, supporting the notion that Ireland appears to have much of this Protestant work ethic even though it is still fair to call it a homogenous Catholic country.
Posted by DC on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:30 PM
That presuposes that only protestants have a work ethic and that the catholics had to adopt it from them because it was not indigenous! Ist that racism or sectarianism?
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:36 PMIt’s the climate stupid.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:47 PMSean,
It was a paradoxical juxtaposition framed in a way to challenge this ‘notion’ of Protestant work ethic.
But if you read the link it is about productivity, which is being driven up in Ireland by American foreign nationals and their know-how to utilise capacity and get value-added.
It is about American business providing the opportunities in Ireland thus in turn upskilling Ireland’s workforce.
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:52 PM“It’s the climate stupid”
Care to expand on that or what?
Posted by on Oct 01, 2007 @ 11:55 PMDr Feldmann has now apparently commenced a study into why a predominantly Protestant country has only won the soccer World Cup once (on home soil of course). He is speculating that this all down to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. From Pele to Maradonna to Platini to Rooney to Keane, Catholicism time and time again delivers a better and more skilful product. And blessing themselves before coming on the pitch freaks the Prods out! And the miraculous medals come in handy too!!
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 12:15 AMSamaguire
Bravo excelent piss into the wind
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 12:33 AMDC
See comment 11.
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 01:27 AMOiliféar
How can you only include ROI and Lithuania in your list of Catholic countries? Have you forgotten about France, Spain , Belgium and old Papa’s Home place in Italy?
The reality is that this trend has been in place for centuries that those countries that have a majority of people from countries not enslaved by the superstition of Islam or Catholicism have a good work ethic and scientific progression.
Yes, people work hard in India but they have not progressed because their thinking is predicated on Eastern logic for centuries which is not based on Biblical Linear Logic of absolutes which has brought about the Scientific Revolution.
China is a good case in point as it now is starting to grow as the number of Bible Christians as increased from less than a million in 1976 to almost 100 million.
We all remember the Dark Ages of superstition in Europe when people were taught that the pope and the Church were infallible. This ignorance made us one of the most shameful continents of darkness for a 1,000 years. Thank God for Martin Luther.
The ROI have at last thrown off the shackles of the wee priests and their cohorts have stopped bombing all the factories in the North - what a breath of fresh air that is having!
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 02:54 AM
