Socioeconomic Status and Religious Beliefs Among U.S. Latinos: Evidence from the 2006 Hispanic Religion Survey

This study examines how socioeconomic status is related to beliefs about the prosperity gospel and miracles among U.S. Latinos. Further, it investigates how religious involvement moderates this relationship. In analyses of data from the 2006 Hispanic Religion Survey (N = 3143), we find that higher levels of education and income are independently associated with lower likelihood of endorsing the prosperity gospel. However, the negative association between education and the likelihood of holding prosperity gospel beliefs is weaker among those Latinos who read scriptures frequently. In addition, although neither education nor income is directly related to miracle beliefs, their influence does depend on the frequency of scripture reading. For example, income is positively associated with the odds of endorsing miracle beliefs only among Latinos who regularly read scripture; by contrast, income is negatively associated with those same odds when scripture reading is infrequent. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories about the ways that different dimensions of social stratification are related to religious beliefs.