Reincarnation Revisited: Question format and the distribution of belief in reincarnation in survey research

Comparing frequency of belief in reincarnation from different international survey projects (RAMP, EVS, ISSP) reveals differences of about 15 to 20 percent depending on the specific question format. If single binary questions are used, then belief in reincarnation is more often reported than if a forced-choice question is used which offers respondents alternatives to belief in reincarnation (e.g. resurrection). One possible explanation for this result is that respondents confuse reincarnation and resurrection if a binary item is used. If this is true, then empirical studies on religious individualization would be flawed because they use belief in reincarnation as an indicator for holistic beliefs such as New Age spirituality, post-Christian spirituality and subjective life spirituality. Using a two stage question on beliefs about the afterlife that combines a binary rating procedure (1. stage) with a reduced forced-choice design (2. stage) allows analysis of whether respondents systematically confuse reincarnation and resurrection. Moreover, analysing associations with other variables on religious beliefs allows testing if consistent patterns of belief emerge. The data provide little evidence that respondents confuse resurrection and reincarnation. Rather, they reveal a high level of uncertainty about belief in the afterlife. To conclude, the paper suggests some recommendations on how belief in reincarnation should be used as an indicator for holistic beliefs

An economic analysis of fertility and female labour force participation in New Zealand

This paper focusses on the regional variation in female labour force participation rates and fertility in New Zealand. The paper progresses beyond earlier work by pooling regional cross-sections of three censuses, by addressing causality in the linkage between fertility and labour force participation explicitly and by testing for structural change in the behavioural equations. The empirical results provide suppon for the neoclassical demand system approach to fertility and labour force participation, in which both are influenced, but in opposite ways, by income and prices (primarily the real wage) and a range of socio-economic controls, which account for regional composition and demand-side effects. It is also found that female labour force participation and fertility became less elastic with respect to male income and the female hourly wage over the 1976-86 decade. This phenomenon is attributed to sharply rising female labour force participation, a decline in the 1FR, a greater time input of males in non-market work and changes in the home production technology

The Macroeconomics of Fertility in Small Open Economies: A Test of the Becker-Barro Model for the Netherlands and New Zealand

Becker and Barro (1988) formulated a theoretical model which identified a range of macroeconomic variables which can temporarily or permanently affect fertility in small open economies. While they suggested that their model provided a plausible explanation for the large shifts in fertility in western economies during this century, no formal econometric investigation was carried out. This paper tests the Becker-Barro model with relevant data which covers most of the 20th century for two small open economies, namely The Netherlands and New Zealand. The results show that government subsidies for having children have a strongly positive effect on fertility, while the provision of public pensions has a strongly negative effect. The degree of intergenerational altruism appears to have been declining. Moreover, there is some - albeit weak-support for the hypothesis that real interest rates positively influence fertility. The empirical analysis of the Dutch data is generally more conclusive than the analysis of the New Zealand data