بررسی تجربی ارتباط فقر و دین در ایران: تحلیل تطبیقی درون کشوری (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
این پرسش که دین چگونه با فقر ارتباط دارد، سؤالی مهم است که محرک تحلیل ها و پژوهش های جامعه شناختی از همان ابتدا بوده است. مروری بر ادبیات جامعه شناسی حکایت از آن دارد که پژوهش در حوزه ارتباط میان فقر و دین با هدایت نظریه محرومیت بوده است. در پژوهش حاضر، ابتدا استدلال های نظریه جامعه شناختی محرومیت درخصوص چگونگی ارتباط فقر با التزام دینی به نحوی با یکدیگر ترکیب شد تا منجر به استنتاج فرضیه ای شود که قابل ارزیابی تجربی باشد. سپس، با واحد تحلیل قراردادن «استان» و استفاده از داده های ثانویه، اعتبار فرضیه تحقیق با روش تطبیقی درون کشوری در ایران آزمون تجربی شد؛ درنهایت، یافته های مربوط به آزمون تجربی رابطه میان فقر و التزام دینی در ایران با روش تطبیقی درون کشوری و تحلیل بین استانی نشان داد که پس از کنترل یا حذف تأثیر متغیرهای توسعه اجتماعی و نابرابری اقتصادی، باز هم «فقر» تأثیر مثبت معناداری بر «التزام دینی» دارد که ازحیث آزمونی، دلالت تأییدی برای نظریه محرومیت داشته است.Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Poverty and Religion in Iran: A Comparative Study within the Country
IntroductionThe relationship between religion and poverty has long captivated sociological researchers; yet the answers offered remain inconclusive and resist simple generalizations. Sociological findings indicate that religion can both facilitate social and economic changes that benefit the poor and perpetuate social and economic inequalities that negatively impact their lives. On the positive side, religion often provides essential structural support to the impoverished, helping them navigate their daily challenges. This support includes various goods and services offered by religious institutions and individuals. However, religion can also uphold and even exacerbate class divisions and inequalities, which contradict the values espoused by many religious traditions. For instance, religion may maintain the status quo by legitimizing social inequalities, reflecting societal power dynamics within religious contexts, or reinforcing behaviors and ideologies that control the poor (Rogers & Konieczny, 2018). When examining Iranian society, a critical issue to explore was the relationship between poverty and religion. Given the diversity of followers of major world religions like Islam whose class compositions encompass a wide range of social strata, we could frame a research question: To what extent are poverty and religion related within Iranian society? Is there evidence of systematic covariation between poverty and religion at the empirical level in this context? Materials and MethodsThis study employed a Durkheimian methodological approach to explanatory sociology. From Durkheim’s perspective, both the explanandum and the explanans should reflect characteristics of collective units or social systems. This implies that even when individual-level data is utilized to measure sociological concepts, the primary aim is to aggregate individual information to describe communities or social systems. In technical terms, the unit of analysis in sociological research is consistently collective units or social systems even if the unit of observation is at the individual level. To empirically test the main hypothesis of this study, we designated the unit of analysis as "province", representing a macro-social unit within Iran. Given this choice, the study employed a within-country comparative method, utilizing collective data to quantitatively compare the provinces of Iran. In summary, the "unit of analysis" was defined as the "province", while the "level of analysis" was set at the national level of "Iran". Secondary data from the most recent census in Iran were used for the final analysis. Discussion of Results & ConclusionThis research paper presented an empirical examination of the relationship between poverty and religion at the macro-sociological level, focusing on the provinces of Iran as the unit of analysis. A review of the literature on the sociology of religion revealed that studies exploring the connection between poverty and religion were often guided by "deprivation theory". This theory posits that poverty has a positive impact on individuals' religious commitment.From a systemic perspective, the implication of this theoretical framework suggests that as one moves across social systems—specifically from provinces with lower poverty rates to those with higher poverty rates—levels of religious commitment are expected to rise. However, it is important to note that changes in the unit of analysis can yield new insights. In this study, we evaluated the empirical validity of the hypothesis derived from deprivation theory using a within-country comparative method, specifically employing "province" as the unit of analysis. To validate this theory, we tested the hypothesis against secondary data from 31 provinces of Iran, assessing the degree to which the predictions of deprivation theory aligned with empirical evidence. The findings from this analysis indicated that, after controlling for the effects of social development and economic inequality, poverty continued to exert a statistically significant positive effect on religious commitment.This finding aligned with the predictions of deprivation theory in the sociology of religion, suggesting confirmatory support for the theory. Thus, we concluded that there was a significant relationship between poverty and religious commitment in Iran, reinforcing the relevance of deprivation theory in understanding this dynamic.
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