The impact of religious beliefs on the labor force participation of black wives

While the effects of religious beliefs on the labor supply of many ethnic groups have been studied, black wives in the United States have not, because of a lack of suitable data. Many black wives are very religious and church centered, but has been found to supply more labor than other female ethnic groups within the United States. The religious tradition of black wives in the United States differs from that of other ethnic groups due to the fact that the "Black Church" which shaped the religious views of black wives, originated in slavery, an institution that oppressed black Americans. The tradition of the "Black Church" includes a mixture of African traditions and traditional Christian teaching, creating something different and unique in America. I have measured the effect of religiosity on the labor supply of black wives with a logistic regression and the National Survey of Black Americans. The results are somewhat mixed and show that while religiosity is negatively correlated with labor supply, church membership, children?s attendance, and participating in church activities is positively correlated with labor supply due to the social functions of the "Black Church".