Religion and employment protection legislation: A fuzzy set-analysis

This article focuses on the relationship between religion and employment protection legislation in Western democracies. In his well-known theory, Esping-Andersen claims that catholic social teaching is the most important determinant of the level employment protection legislation. In contrast to Esping-Andersen, we argue that his argument is not a sufficient explanation and has to be extended by introducing political actors (Christian and Social democracy), religiosity (demand and supply side) and a distinction between lutheran and reformed Protestantism. The empirical part shows that religious factors can explain a part of the observed variation, but the discussed extensions prove to be crucial. Next to religious factors, the coordination between firms in an economy plays an important role. However, the model fails to explain the variation among Europe's small and open economies. In these countries, alternative schemes for the protection of employees exist. In the case of Switzerland, for example, these schemes even lead to a similarly gender- segregated labour market.