new characteristics of inequalities in the information society and ...

ISSN: 2247-6172;
ISSN-L: 2247-6172
Review of Applied Socio- Economic Research
(Volume 5, Issue 1/ 2013), pp. 18
URL: http://www.reaser.eu
e-mail: editors@reaser.eu
education is not believed to be conducive to better jobs and social status. The stronger this
conservative dimension, the closer to zero the parameter , which is taken as the degree of
religious conservatism. Thus, the size of the positive influence of religion upon education depends
on the degree of religious traditionalism. Following Saroglou, Delpierre and Dernell (2003),
religious conservatism can be moderated by the cultural change caused by development and
modernization. Consequently the overall effect of religion depends as well on the level of
economic development, which enters the accumulation of human capital and is interacted with
religion in (2). The component R t
D t
(with R t
1) represents being religious in a collectivity with
a certain level of development and modernization. The influence of Dt on the human capital of a
religious individual ( R t
1) is partly captured by 0 , which implies that with rising economic
development religion conforms to modern values enhancing, in particular, individual independence
and self-determination. This strengthens the positive influence of religion alone on children’s
educational achievements. We interpret the parameter as embodying the ability of religious
institutions to adapt to the values fostered by economic development and modernization. It will be
shortly defined as religion reactivity to development. The higher the , the greater the influence of
development as religion tends to promote modern values fostering educational achievements.
Adults’ earnings depend on human capital and are assumed to be equal to h t 1
. Finally, in the
last period individuals consume all their income. Thus, they choose n t
and c t 1
in order to
maximize their utility:
ln n t
ln c t 1
given the following constraints
h t 1
(1 n t
) h t ( R t
R t
D t
)
y t 1
h t 1
h t 1
c t 1
and given h t
, R t
and D t
.
It is easy to show that:
n t * 1
1
*
h t 1
1
h t
R t
R t
D t (4)
As one would expect, in equilibrium children’s human capital is determined not only by the
optimal time devoted to the acquisition of education, 1 n t * , family endowment of human capital
(3)