Religiousness is defined in terms of attendance to places of worship and adherence to other religious beliefs and practices. These underlie the Gallup World Poll survey's measure of importance attached to religiousness. Corruption, on its part, is defined as 'the abuse of entrusted power for private gain'. As measuring this is not straightforward, surveys, including ours, mainly rely on 'corruption perceptions' instead of actual corruption levels.
We examine the covariates of both religiosity and perceptions of corruption, and the two outcomes are determined simultaneously. Let us first consider key correlates of religiosity. Of all the five religious affiliations considered - Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity and others - relative to Hindus, only Christians display higher religiosity in India. As individuals grow older, they are more likely to be religious. Our analysis shows that those in the 51-60 age group are more likely to be religious than those younger. It is, therefore, pertinent to examine whether interactions of religious affiliations and age groups yield any insights.
We, however, find Hindus in the 51-60 age group to be less religious than the younger Hindus. On the other hand, Christians in the 15-50 age group are less religious than Hindus in the same age group. Women, relative to men, are found to be generally more religious. Caste continues to reflect rigid socioeconomic hierarchy despite upward income mobility of lower castes due to affirmative action. Relative to the unreserved category, all those 'lower down' the hierarchy - other backward classes (OBC), scheduled castes and tribes (SC/ST) - display higher religiosity.
So, perhaps, greater socioeconomic deprivation induces greater religiosity. Two measures of affluence - per-capita income of individuals, and per-capita income of regions - show divergent relationships. While the former is negatively related with religiosity, affluence at the regional level shows a positive relationship. If more affluent regions offer better and more diverse places of worship, for example, the latter seems plausible.
Two other correlates: civic engagement options and level of freedom in life matter, too. Both are positively related to religiosity. Religiosity was higher in 2019 and 2020 but lower in 2021 relative to 2018. That there was a threshold effect in 2021 is not unlikely.
Now, coming back to the correlation between religiosity and corruption, the caste results are patchy. Relative to the unreserved, OBCs perceive lower corruption in both government and business together, and in government separately, as do STs. The more affluent an individual, the higher he perceives corruption in both government and business together, and in the two separately.
In sharp contrast, there is a reversal with regional affluence. The greater the affluence at the regional level, the lower the perceived corruption in all three cases (government and business together, and the two separately). Perhaps larger financial transactions and contracts attract more careful scrutiny and result in lower corruption.
Finally, higher educational attainments (relative to primary level) are positively related to corruption in all these spheres. Presumably, this reflects greater awareness among the better educated of corrupt transactions in both government and businesses. Not just better auditing of financial transactions in both government and businesses, but also performance-linked salaries and proper punishment of the guilty may make a difference.
(Gupta is doctoral student, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, and Kulkarni and Gaiha are research affiliates, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, US)
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