| ID | 161864 |
| Title Proper | Religion and trust in strangers among China's rural-urban migrants |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Niu, Geng |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | During China's rapid urbanization, the social marginalization of its rural-urban migrants has attracted increasing scholarly and social attention. At the same time, China is experiencing a rising tide of religion, the impact of which on social integration remains unexplored. Based on a large-scale survey for rural-urban migrants, we find that being a religious believer is associated with a higher level of trust towards strangers. In addition, participating in religious-related activities has a positive impact on trust for both believers and non-believers. We test the robustness of our results using instrumental variable analysis. We conjecture that prosocial values in religious teaching and social interaction opportunities contribute to rural-urban migrants' generalized trust. Our results indicate that informal institution such as religion can be important in forming social capital for marginalized social groups. |
| `In' analytical Note | China Economic Review Vol. 50; Aug 2018: p.265-272 |
| Journal Source | China Economic Review 2018-07 50 |
| Key Words | Social interaction ; China ; Religiosity ; Informal Institution ; Rural-Urban Migrants ; Generalized Trust |