This article was originally published in May 2018.
A new LCC Working Paper by Silvia Mendolia, Alfredo R. Paloyo and Ian Walker explores the impact of religiosity on teenage propensity to engage in risky behaviours. The paper, titled ‘The Effect of Religiosity on Adolescent Risky Behaviors’, focuses specifically on risky health behaviours, including trying drugs, cigarettes and alcohol, and engaging in fighting and sexual intercourse.
The authors find that the individual propensity to engage in risky health behaviours strongly decreases when individuals show both high levels of religiosity and strong work ethic. Low self-esteem also plays a role in increasing the chances of engaging in early sexual intercourse, smoking, and drinking.
The authors argue that, from a policy perspective, there is a potential to focus on positive changes in personality traits, particularly work ethic and self-esteem. Policymakers may also extract what is essential in religion that creates these positive behavioural outcomes, and form policies around that for a far greater scope which includes adolescents or families who do not profess religious beliefs.
You can read the full Working Paper here.