Religious Participation: Does It Matter for Sustainable Culture and Entertainment Consumption?

Abstract

Previous research has studied the correlations between income, education, and sustainable culture and entertainment consumption. The correlation between religion as an informal institution and culture and entertainment consumption is often neglected. Based on this background, this paper attempts to explore the correlation between religious participation (as a proxy for religion) and three kinds of sustainable culture and entertainment consumption. Using the data from the Chinese General Social Survey in 2017 to perform empirical analysis, it is found that religious participation is negatively correlated with the sustainable culture and entertainment consumption. Two-stage least squares and propensity score matching method were employed, verifying the robustness of this result. Additionally, the full sample was divided into sub-samples to discuss the heterogeneous correlation between religious participation and sustainable culture and entertainment consumption. The results suggest that in the low income group and the low marketization degree group, religious participation is most relevant to the sustainable culture and entertainment consumption. This paper contributes to enriching current research.