An index is a tool that can be used by individuals in many different professions to more thoroughly understand the impact and intersectionality of disparate issues. For instance, the Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite measurement of a number of different factors, including country income per capita, life expectancy, and so on. These factors are statistically analyzed to determine how a specific country fares in relation to other countries, and the relative scores—somewhat meaningless on their own—can be used to determine the relative development of an individual country. Indices can be developed to examine any number of different factors; they are limited only by the interconnectivity of the different factors that are being studied and the creativity of the researcher. These factors help the researcher determine the relationship between factors that might otherwise be correlated but difficult to truly integrate.
The index that will be examined in this discussion will investigate a number of different factors relating to race, ethnicity, and income. While this issue has been studied in some depth in many different countries, the purpose of the development of this particular index will be to have a structure that allows for overarching comparison between different countries, particularly as religious inequality seems to be a problem in nearly every country. Economic factors will be the primary concern for this index—the purpose of the index will be to determine the relative average purchasing power of different groups, using the same analytical platform for every country regardless of location. Like the Human Development Index, then, this index could be used for comparative and ranking purposes.
There are a number of data sets that could be potentially useful to integrate into this index. However, before determining what data sets to use, it is important to determine exactly what will be measured. Religious affiliation is certainly something that can be measured, and this data set is widely available for most countries around the world. However, religiosity and agnosticism are two facets that should also be integrated into the index. The problem with integrating this measurement is that for countries like Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries—where being agnostic or atheist is still illegal—there is no reliable information to integrate for the index. However, using a measurement of religious freedom in combination with a sliding scale of religiosity might offset mistakes made due to lack of appropriate data. Instead of focusing on self-reported belief structures like the depth of belief (agnosticism vs. religiosity), the index will focus on the government’s involvement in the religious beliefs of the citizenry (if the government is at all involved). For instance, countries like the United States—where religion is generally not part of political life—will be weighted differently than countries like the United Kingdom, where political structures have an de jure but perhaps not a de facto connection with religious belief. On the other end of the spectrum, countries like Saudi Arabia would rank highly in terms of integration between political life and religious life.
Other factors that should be integrated are religious diversity within the country and government engagement with religious activities. All of these factors can then be fully analyzed using the appropriate data sets to determine how different countries rank in terms of religiosity and religious equity within the list of world powers as a whole. It also provides the researcher with an opportunity to understand the role of religious affiliation on mobility and opportunity within a given country. These are incredibly important pieces of information to understand the relationship between religious life and success in human culture as a whole.
There are a number of reasons to suspect that religious affiliation with the majority religious organization within a culture has significant benefits for an individual, and that religious affiliation has a generally positive impact on cultural, economic, and social mobility. The exception to this rule might be in cultures that are dominantly one religion or another, in which the individual is part of a minority culture. There is no guarantee that the results will reflect this hypothesis, however—and the likelihood that religious affiliation has a positive impact on a person’s mobility and power in a culture is not a reflection on religion as a whole.
Instead, the likelihood that religious affiliation has a positive impact on a person’s mobility and power in a culture is a reflection on the nature of human beings: people tend to be quite social, and religious groups are essentially social in-groups that allow for individuals to support each other and help each other succeed. Religious groups, then, are subsections of society that support their members and ensure that they are able to succeed. One of the simplest examples of this kind of integration can be seen in American churches: when one member of the church community becomes ill or when a family falls on hard times, the community raises money and binds together to ensure that the members do not struggle without support.
Religious affiliation and religious groupings are difficult to study because they vary so heavily from place to place, but the society in which these groups exist play a very significant role in their members’ successes and failures. Using an index to rank and compare different countries will be an extremely interesting, quantitative way of understanding different implications for religious groups in different parts of the world. Although never perfect, indices provide an excellent way for researchers to begin qualitative analysis on important issues.
References
Arrow, Kenneth Joseph, Samuel Bowles, and Steven N. Durlauf. Meritocracy and economic inequality. Princeton University Press, 2000.
Bowles, Samuel, Herbert Gintis, and Melissa Osborne Groves, eds. Unequal chances: Family background and economic success. Princeton University Press, 2009.
Winship, Scott. 2012. "Assessing Income Inequality, Mobility And Opportunity". The Brookings Institution. Accessed March 8 2016. http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2012/02/09-inequality-mobility-winship.
