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PurposeBased on a multidimensional perspective of workplace spirituality, the authors examined a moderated mediation model, wherein workplace spirituality leads to life satisfaction through organizational commitment moderated by employees' religious affiliation.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from South Korean employees, and hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis.FindingsThree subdimensions of workplace spirituality – meaning at work, membership and inner life – were positively related to organizational commitment. In addition, organizational commitment mediated the relationships between the subdimensions and life satisfaction. Employees' religious affiliation moderated the relationship between the inner life and organizational commitment, which, in turn, also mediated the interactive effect on life satisfaction.Practical implicationsBased on the awareness of the importance of workplace spirituality, organizations need to endeavor to help employees find meaningfulness in their work, experience a climate of mutual understanding and feel a sense of trust and respect within organizations by providing opportunities or resources to fulfill their needs to spiritual self. In addition, organizations need to consider implementing policies to support employees to pursue their inner spirit not only within the workplace but also in the areas of personal life.Originality/valueThis study verifies the internal mechanisms behind the workplace spirituality – life satisfaction relationship and underlines how religious affiliation interacts with workplace spirituality to influence organizational commitment and life satisfaction.

Religion and religiosity are known as important determinants of health and mortality. Previous studies on the interrelation between religion and mortality have relied on survey data and have mainly been carried out in a North American setting. We provide a register-based study of life expectancy by religious affiliation for a total national population over the course of five decades. We calculate life expectancy by religious affiliation, using register data on the entire population of Finland for the period 1972-2020. Calculations are made separately for men and women born in Finland and abroad. We use administrative longitudinal annual data on each person's religious denomination, as registered by the Finnish government. Orthodox Christians have up to two years shorter life expectancy than members of the Evangelical Lutheran State Church, while people of other religions have up to four years longer life expectancy. Non-affiliated persons have about one-year shorter life expectancy than Evangelical Lutherans, but the difference has decreased over time, and they currently are at a similar level. The pattern of life expectancy is similar for the native-and foreign-born, but sex differences are more pronounced among the latter. Religious affiliation as measured by population register data is an important determinant of life expectancy.

Religious affiliation is one of the indicators of the internal personality and spirituality of an employee. Although it can increase organizational effectiveness through motivation and job satisfaction, managers have not yet implemented this indicator in their work for various reasons. The purpose of this study is to test whether religious affiliation has a significant effect on the motivation and job satisfaction of faculty members at management schools in Norwegian and French higher education institutions. A survey of 96 academic workers was conducted in the spring of 2023. The results were examined using a one-way ANOVA test. The findings revealed a significant disparity in motivation and job satisfaction among academics of different religious affiliations. Only 10% of the considered motivators turned out to be significantly equal for all surveyed academic workers, while the majority showed a significant difference. Representatives of Western religions and atheists in general are significantly less motivated and satisfied with their work than representatives of Eastern religions. Significant differences were also found between representatives of various Eastern religions, indicating the impact of religion on the motivation and job satisfaction of academic workers. These findings provide an opportunity for university management to better motivate and satisfy academic staff based on their religious affiliations. When forming the teams to perform work tasks, managers can consider these findings to achieve better interaction and quality and improve organizational effectiveness.

Previous studies have shown that religion and spirituality can provide resources to cope with aging and impact the well-being of older adults. However, whether religiosity and well-being are linked depends on how they are measured. Moreover, the size of statistically significant effects often remains small or even negligible. In Switzerland, two historical religious communities—Catholic and Protestant—have coexisted for centuries, providing an opportunity for exploring potential differences in religious practices of members of these two communities and their effects on well-being. Two populations were targeted: elderly people engaged in organized volunteering and elderly people receiving home care services. A total of 617 volunteers and 614 home care clients returned complete and valid questionnaires. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 43 volunteers and 35 home care clients to gain deeper insights into their experiences. Since the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also explored how participants experienced the semi-lockdown restrictions. The results show that knowing religious affiliation is not sufficient to predict well-being. The degree of identification with the declared affiliation must also be taken into account. Differences between Protestants and Catholics can be highlighted, especially when considering religious practices in more detail. The impact of the pandemic on well-being is only moderately associated with religiosity.

Perception of refugees in Nairobi goes beyond the generic and homogenizing term 'refugees' and the legal instruments guiding the hosting of refugees. Legal instruments such as the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1969 African Union Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa take the position that refugee hosting is humanitarian and apolitical. Based on the experiences and circumstances of Somali refugees in Nairobi, this paper takes a contrary view and argues that refugee hosting is political and shaped by interpretation of the conflict that the refugees fled and their perceived political implications for the host country. The paper locates accentuation and criminalization of Somali religious affiliation in the localization of global conflicts and globalization of local conflicts in which the predominantly Muslim Somali refugees become the local and regional epitome of contemporary global terrorism as the conflict in Somalia has global ramifications due to its association with global terrorism. Having demonstrated the role of regional and global politics in the hosting of Somalis in Kenya, the paper also argues that Somalis are not helpless victims of circumstances as they create counter-narratives that seek to de-legitimize politicization and criminalization of their religious and ethnic affiliations.

This study seeks to explain the differences in the perception of social and pastoral service after the first and second wave pandemic in 2020 among the inhabitants of two neighbouring states, both parts of the former unified Czechoslovakia. Our research study compares subjective perception, needs, and participation among inhabitants of eastern Slovakia and north-western Czech Republic in social and pastoral service during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research sample consisted of a healthy population from the Czech Republic (n = 496) and Slovakia (n = 484) over 16 years of age, of which 63% (n = 617) were women and 37% (n = 363) men. The level of education ranged from primary to postgraduate. The research sample consisted of 623 (63.6%) participants with religious affiliation and 357 (36.4%) without religion. The level of perception, needs, and participation of the participants in social and pastoral service was obtained based on a non-standardised questionnaire. The results of our study confirmed several differences in the areas studied.

This study examines the stability of religious preference among people who claim no religious preference in national surveys (i.e., religious nones). Using data from the Faith Matters Study, General Social Survey, and American National Election Study, we show that about 30 percent of religious nones in the first wave of the survey claim an affiliation with a religious group a year later. The percentage of religious nones remained stable in the two waves because a similar number of respondents moved in the opposite direction. Using various measures of religiosity, we show that most of these unstable nones report no significant change in religious belief or practice. We call them liminal nones as they stand halfway in and halfway out of a religious identity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings on the controversies surrounding the rise of religious nones in recent years.

Institutionally organized religious life in the United State is undergoing a dramatic transformation. While individual beliefs and practices remain relatively stable, institutional affiliation and participation has declined dramatically. In this article, we explore the religious \"Dones\"—those who have disaffiliated with their religious congregations but, unlike the Nones, continue to associate with a religious tradition. Drawing on a unique dataset of 100 in-depth interviews with self-identified Christians, we explain the \"push\" and \"pull\" factors that lead a person to intentionally leave their congregations. We find that a bureaucratic structure and a narrow focus on certain moral proscriptions can drive people away, while the prospect of forming more meaningful relationships and the opportunities to actively participate in social justice issues draw people out. From these factors, we show that an \"iron cage of congregations\" exists that is ill-suited to respond to a world where religious life is increasingly permeable as people enact their spirituality outside traditional religious organizations. We conclude by questioning whether the spiritual lives of the Dones are ultimately sustainable without institutional support.

The United States is awash in a sea of both faith and firearms. Although sociologists and criminologists have been trying to understand the predictors of gun ownership in the United States since the 1970s, it has been over two decades since social scientists of religion have been part of this important conversation. Consequently, religion is nothing more than a control variable in most studies of gun ownership. Even then, scholars have rarely gone beyond a basic measure of religious affiliation in which Protestant = 1 (else = 0). This article therefore seeks to bring social scientists studying religion back into the conversation about gun ownership in America and to move the discussion forward incrementally. It does so in three ways. First, it employs a more sophisticated measure of religious affiliation than has been used to study gun ownership in the past. Second, it measures religiosity beyond simply religious affiliation. Third, it recognizes and seeks to specify some of the various ways in which the relationship between religion and gun ownership may be mediated by other religiously influenced sociopolitical orientations. Using data from the 2006–2014 General Social Survey, hierarchical binary logistic regression models show significant effects of evangelical Protestant affiliation, theological conservatism, and religious involvement on personal handgun ownership.