Religion and Life Satisfaction Down Under

Abstract

We investigated the association between religious involvement and life satisfaction using panel data from the 2004, 2007, and 2010 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Our study provides strong evidence of an association between attendance at religious services and life satisfaction in the Australian social context. While social resources mediate this association, there appears to be a remaining direct influence of attendance at religious services on life satisfaction. To unravel this association, there is a need to disentangle and separately assess the influence that ‘religious social resources’ and ‘secular social resources’ may have on life satisfaction.