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Is it a career advantage to be a Protestant?

I was discussing things online with an American engineer who mentioned that engineers in the US tend not to be particularly religious but it's an advantage to be a Protestant if you want to rise to a senior position or go into management. A general trend exists that in lower to middle ranking positions in industry religion is immaterial but above middle positions there is a correlation between seniority and Protestant commitment. That doesn't mean that chief engineers or corporate bosses are holier than thou or even attend church regularly, or more regularly than junior engineers, but they possess a strong knowledge of the Bible and the tenets of Protestantism. They are also admirers of John Calvin and his ideals.

Does a similar phenomenon exist in Britain?

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0 Andy Millar over 7 years ago

Roy Bowdler:

I’m not a historian, just interested, but perhaps there is an academic historian's angle around the advantages of Protestantism.

I understand that historians have proposed definite reasons as to why the industrial revolution arose predominantly in Protestant countries, but I certainly don't understand the argument well enough to attempt to precis it here. I really need to read a bit more about this, it's a subject that's interested me for a while. I'm part way through a rather heavy (but very good) book on the histroy of the Enlightenment at the moment, but suspect I will need to read it twice more before all the complex threads pull together thoroughly!

but I hope that anyone affiliating to this IET community is respectful of others and “blind” to anyone else’s religious faith (if any), gender, ethnicity etc.

Oh, I am sure there will be people in this community who have their own strong prejudices, certainly in past times on these forums we have had what I would consider to be prejudiced comments relating to people's sex and their competence as engineers. I think it's important to keep in the open that prejudice a) exists, b) is exactly that - prejudice, and c) is unhelpful to put it very very mildly.

But I suspect (from what I understand of the US environment) the subject that spurred this thread is less about religous prejudice and more about a clique.

Fascinating topic. As Douglas Adams put : "To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem".

Cheers,

Andy
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0 Andy Millar over 7 years ago

Roy Bowdler:

I’m not a historian, just interested, but perhaps there is an academic historian's angle around the advantages of Protestantism.

I understand that historians have proposed definite reasons as to why the industrial revolution arose predominantly in Protestant countries, but I certainly don't understand the argument well enough to attempt to precis it here. I really need to read a bit more about this, it's a subject that's interested me for a while. I'm part way through a rather heavy (but very good) book on the histroy of the Enlightenment at the moment, but suspect I will need to read it twice more before all the complex threads pull together thoroughly!

but I hope that anyone affiliating to this IET community is respectful of others and “blind” to anyone else’s religious faith (if any), gender, ethnicity etc.

Oh, I am sure there will be people in this community who have their own strong prejudices, certainly in past times on these forums we have had what I would consider to be prejudiced comments relating to people's sex and their competence as engineers. I think it's important to keep in the open that prejudice a) exists, b) is exactly that - prejudice, and c) is unhelpful to put it very very mildly.

But I suspect (from what I understand of the US environment) the subject that spurred this thread is less about religous prejudice and more about a clique.

Fascinating topic. As Douglas Adams put : "To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem".

Cheers,

Andy
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Is it a career advantage to be a Protestant?

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