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Studies of caregivers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) rarely examine the role religion plays in their lives. We conducted qualitative interviews of 69 caregivers in four countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Cambodia, and India (Hyderabad and Nagaland), and across four religious traditions: Christian (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant), Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu. We asked respondents to describe the importance of religion for their becoming a caregiver, the way in which religion has helped them make sense of why children are orphans, and how religion helps them face the challenges of their occupation. Using qualitative descriptive analysis, three major themes emerged. Respondents discussed how religion provided a strong motivation for their work, reported that religious institutions were often the way in which they were introduced to caregiving as an occupation, and spoke of the ways religious practices sustain them in their work. They rarely advanced religion as an explanation for why OVC exist-only when pressed did they offer explicitly religious accounts. This study has implications for OVC care, including the importance of engaging religious institutions to support caregivers, the significance of attending to local religious context, and the vital need for research outside of Christian contexts.

We argue that perceived support is best conceptualized more as a measure of how an individual appraises his/her situation rather than a true reflection of how much support he/she receives. To test this theory, we used survey data from the Clergy Health Initiative Panel Survey to examine the relationship between perceived and received social support and their association with depressive symptoms in clergy (N = 1,288). Overall, analyses revealed perceived support had a weak association with received support. Greater perceived support had a significant relationship with lower depressive symptoms. In contrast, greater received support had only a small relationship with lower depressive symptoms, which was fully mediated by perceived support. Our results raise questions about the effectiveness of many clergy social support interventions, which often aim to boost the quality and/or quantity of received social support. We suggest it may be more advantageous to boost perceptions of social support, possibly through cognitive reframing or positive mental health interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research reveals mixed results regarding the relationship between gender and charitable giving. We show gender plays a significant role in giving but only when considered alongside marital status and religion. Using the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, we model a household’s propensity to give and the amount given. We extend past research by disaggregating unmarried households to look at divorced, widowed, and never-married households, and by including multiple religion measures. Results indicate households headed by never-married females have lower giving levels compared with those headed by divorced and widowed women. In households headed by single males, these differences are largely absent. Religious attendance has a stronger association with giving in male-headed households. The respondent’s gender is also related to the amount married households report giving to charity. Future research on giving should consider both gender and marital status to more fully capture increasing diversity in American families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]