Peasants' Income Level and Their Religious Belief: Hypothesis and Verification Based on U-curve

There are two different dispute opinions on the relationship between peasants' income level and their religious belief. The focus of dispute is whether the correlation between income level and the probability of their religious belief is positive or negative. We propose the hypothesis that their relationship conforms to U-curve, further, we verify our hypothesis with zero-inflated Poisson model and Logit model using data from rural fixed observation points in 2010. The results from model regression reveal that the probability of household with religious belief is the lowest while the monthly income of a household is 1 826~2 921 RMB Yuan. While the monthly income of a household is < 1 826 RMB Yuan, the lower a monthly income of a household is, the higher the probability of a household with religious belief is. While the monthly income of a household is > 2 921 RMB Yuan, the higher a monthly income of a household is, the higher the probability of a household with religious belief is.