Religiosity and Economic Behaviour. An Exploratory Analysis of the Hungary-Romania Cross-Border Area

Our paper is an exploratory analysis of the role religion can still have today with respect to directing students’ economic behaviour. We evaluated and grouped the theories dealing with the relationship between religion and economics in three categories: theories that consider the two areas as incompatible, theories that identify mutual determination between them and theories that admit the coexistence or the mutual support between economics and religion. We sought to clarify the degree of religiosity of students and its relationship with the economic behaviour (employment during studies, job seeking, characteristics of the desired job etc.), relying our conclusions on the data of the questionnaire-based survey conducted among students in the Hungary-Romania cross-border area. Our study results indicate a decline regarding the degree of religiosity among students of both countries, but also important differences with respect to the religiosity degree recorded in the case of the students in the two countries, indicating a higher degree of religiosity among the students from Romania. Our research reveals the lack or the little effect concerning the influence that religiosity exerts on the economic behaviour, suggesting the need for other explanatory models of higher education students’ labour market participation.