Literature shows that religiosity can provide individual resilience to life shocks as well as regional resilience to disasters caused by natural hazards. Related work has examined the complicated links between religion and economic growth. Yet few, if any, studies examine the role of regional levels of religiosity on a region's resilience to recession—or how quickly the employment rate returns to pre‐recession levels (a common measure of resilience in the economics literature). As the recovery period of the Great Recession cools and economists warn of future economic downturns, all known variables that may be linked with regional resilience are worthy of exploration. Using survey results from the Gosling‐Potter Internet Project and General Social Surveys, we applied logarithmic functions to pre‐ and post‐Great Recession employment data for 2,836 U.S. counties. We found a modest and statistically significant association between religious belief and regional resilience to recession. Religiosity was the strongest of sixteen psychosocial variables that we examined in association with the speed of job recovery; despite having negative links with other economic variables. This has particular salience for more rural economies; policy implications are discussed.

中文翻译：

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宗教和区域对衰退的适应力

文献表明，宗教信仰可以提供个人抗震能力，也可以提供区域抗灾能力，以应对自然灾害造成的灾难。相关工作研究了宗教与经济增长之间的复杂联系。然而，几乎没有研究研究区域宗教信仰水平对一个地区对衰退的抵御力的作用，或者研究就业率恢复到衰退前水平的速度（经济学文献中对抵御力的一种常见度量）。随着大衰退的复苏期降温，经济学家警告未来的经济下滑，所有可能与区域弹性相关的已知变量都值得探索。利用Gosling-Potter互联网项目和一般社会调查的调查结果，我们将对数函数应用于大萧条前后的就业数据（2）美国836个县。我们发现宗教信仰与区域对衰退的抵御能力之间存在适度且具有统计意义的关联。宗教信仰是我们与工作恢复速度相关的16个社会心理变量中最强的一个。尽管与其他经济变量之间存在负相关关系。这对更多的农村经济尤为突出。讨论了政策含义。