Religious affiliation plays a powerful role in how much wealth people have, according to a new national study.
The Ohio State University study found that Jews amass the most wealth and conservative Protestants the least. Mainline Protestants and Catholics fell in between and were about average with the rest of the population.
The study also found that people who attend services regularly build more wealth than those who don't.
The effect of religion is robust, even after taking into account inheritances, levels of education and other factors affecting wealth that may be associated with particular religious denominations, said Lisa Keister, author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University.
"Religion is an important factor in wealth accumulation, a factor that hasn't received a lot of attention," said Lisa Keister, a sociology professor who wrote the study. "The results suggest people draw on the tools they learn from religion to develop strategies for saving, investing and spending, and those tools may be different in various faiths."
She said that while some could say the results affirm stereotypes, she disagrees.
"What I'm finding is that families have a powerful influence on how people learn to save, and religion is often an important part of family life," Keister said. "The things children are taught in Jewish homes are very different than those that are taught in conservative Protestant homes."
Overall, the median net worth of Jewish people in the survey was $150,890, more than three times the median for the entire sample. The median net worth for conservative Protestants (which included Baptists, Jehovahs Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, among others) was $26,200, or about half the overall average. The median net worth of mainstream Protestants (including Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Unitarians and others) and Catholics were similar to each other and about the average for the whole sample.
The study is published in the September issue of the journal Social Forces. It was based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which follows nearly 5,000 people over time.
Religious teachings of different faiths may influence spending and saving strategies in a variety of ways, according to Keister.
For example, conservative Protestants often emphasize prayer and trust in God, which may reduce their desire to invest. Conservative Protestants also look forward to the rewards of the afterlife and don't promote acquiring wealth as a good for this life.
Jews, on the other hand, don't have a strong orientation to the afterlife, but encourage pursuits that will lead to wealth accumulation, such as high-income careers and investing.
Mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics were at one time distinct from each other and from the rest of the population, Keister said, but this study shows that the distinctiveness has diminished in recent years. The result is that both groups look like the rest of the population in terms of wealth.
The study also looked at the financial paths people take. For example, only 1 percent of Jewish people remained asset-poor throughout life, compared to 15 percent of conservative Protestants. About 9 percent of mainline Protestants and 7 percent of Catholics followed this trajectory.
The most common trajectory is to buy a home relatively early in life and then accumulate other assets, such as stocks and bonds, later. About 35 percent of Jews followed this path, compared to 3 percent of conservative Protestants, 22 percent of mainline Protestants and 20 percent of Catholics.
Jewish people stood out in a third trajectory in which people invest early in life in high-risk, high-return assets such as stocks and bonds and build wealth quickly while putting less emphasis on homeownership.