Christian missions and anti-gay attitudes in Africa

Ananyev, Maxim; Poyker, Michael

Abstract

We argue that colonial Christian missions had a long-term impact on anti-gay attitudes in Africa. We use a geo-coded representative survey of African countries and the location of historical Christian missions to estimate a significant and economically meaningful association between proximity to historical missions and anti-gay sentiments today. Using anthropological data on pre-colonial acceptance of homosexual practices among indigenous groups, we show that the establishment of missions, while nonrandom, was exogenous to pre-existing same-sex patterns among indigenous population. The estimated effect is driven by persons of Christian faith and statistically indistinguishable from zero on samples of Muslims, nonbelievers, and followers of traditional indigenous religions. Thus, we argue that our results are indicative of a causal effect of missionary religious conversion to Christianity.

Citation

Ananyev, M., & Poyker, M. (2021). Christian missions and anti-gay attitudes in Africa. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 184, 359-374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.003

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 2, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Feb 24, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-04
• Deposit Date: Jun 29, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 25, 2022
• Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
• Print ISSN: 0167-2681
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 184
• Pages: 359-374
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.003
• Keywords: Economics and Econometrics; Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5746392
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268121000585?via=ihub
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Christian missions and anti-gay attitudes in Africa; Journal Title: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.003; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.