Does Family Status Moderate the Association between Religiosity and Substance Use Behaviors

• In Event: 341 - Section on Sociology of Religion Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Religion and "Deviance"

Abstract

The present study explores whether or not the association between religiosity and substance use behaviors (i.e. smoking, alcohol use) varies across family statuses (i.e. marital statuses and parental statuses). Based on an expanded version of Rodney Stark’s Moral Communities Thesis, which posits that an individual’s religiosity will become more salient in environments where the majority are co-religionists, I argue that the association between religiosity and substance use behaviors is stronger among individuals with family statuses that are conducive to greater integration into religious networks (e.g. parents and married couples). Overall, I find that the association between religiosity and smoking is stronger for married parents relative to single parents and cohabitating individuals, which provides partial support for the expanded version of Stark’s hypothesis. This study elucidates the need to explore variation in the association between religiosity and substance use behaviors in particular, and religiosity and health in general.

Author

• Jason Alan Freeman, Towson University