Religion and Poverty Alleviation in South Sulawesi: Analysis at the Village Level

Abstract

The influence of religion on poverty reduction has become an exciting study in various countries. Several studies have proven no relationship between religious observance and poverty alleviation. However, on the contrary, other studies have proven that religion affects poverty alleviation. In fact, religion should be able to help overcome poverty. Based on this phenomenon, this study will use raw data of Village Potential (Podes) data issued by BPS in 2018 for South Sulawesi Province, with around 3000 villages. The dependent variable of this study is the number of poor people in each village. Poverty data is taken from the number of poverty certificates issued by the village. This data explains the willingness of people to be considered poor, so that it can show voluntary poverty. Meanwhile, the independent variables include the number of religious places of worship, the number of educational institutions, the number of health institutions, the number of electricity customers, and the number of small-scale industries in the village. This study will use a simple regression method to find the relationship between the variables studied. Even though econometrically many variable relationships are not statistically significant which may be due to the completeness and abnormal distribution of the data, there are interesting variable relationships from this study. The relationship between religion and poverty is negative, indicating that religion can reduce poverty. Community-based health services (posyandu) can also reduce poverty. Markets that show economic aspects will also have an impact on reducing poverty. The same thing is technology proxied with electricity customers will also reduce poverty. Meanwhile, the geographic variable proxied by the distance between the village and the sub-district is not significant and the direction is not as expected.
 Keywords: religion, poverty, South Sulawesi