Influence of the "Religious Factor" on Career Plans and Occupational Values of College Graduates

Abstract

Previous studies have indicated a strong tendency toward antiscientism among American Catholics; in particular, the recent work of Lenski has suggested that Catholics will score low on indicators of economic rationality (the "Protestant Ethic"). These hypotheses are not substantiated by data gathered in a survey of June, 1961, college graduates. Catholics were as likely to go to graduate school, to choose an academic career, to specialize in the physical sciences, and to plan a life of research as Protestants, even under a battery of socioeconomic and demographic controls. Nor was there any indication that catholics were any less inclined to economic rationality than Protestants. It is suggested that the differences between these findings and those of Lenski might be connected with the different ethnic compositions of the two samples. A reexamination of an earlier study supports this suggestion.

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