Employment, wages and religious revivals in post-communist countries

Pavol MinárikTurin / Prague

The problem

• After the collapse of Communist regimes in Central Europe, religious participation (church attendance) increased rapidly

• However, in most countries attendance rates have declined subsequently

• How do we account for such development?

Prominent theories in SoR/EoR

• Secularization theory (demand-side)– loss of faith/purpose due to modernization– increase in existential security… hardly applicable to post-communist countries

• Supply-side theory– restricted competition at the religious market

lowers the quality of services, hence decline– de-regulation in post-communist countries should

have enhanced competition (?)

The model

• Our model differs– it focuses on the demand side and deals with

individual’s choice on religious participation(Azzi & Ehrenberg JPE 1975, Sullivan 1985, etc.)

• Assumptions– an individual maximizes utility from secular and

religious consumption(both produced using time and money)

– an individual allocates her time to labor, leisure and religious activities

The model

• Predictions (quite intuitive)– the older one is, the higher the religious

participation (and consumption in general)– the higher the wage rate, the lower the

religious participation

* actually, for the youngest cohorts, participation may be slightly higher, as their wage rate is usually low

In the post-communist period

• Relevant factors in the post-communist period– decrease in real wages– decrease in employment rates

19911992

19931994

19951996

19971998

19992000

20012002

20032004

20052006

20072008

40

45

50

55

60

65 Czech RepublicGermanyHungaryPolandSlovakiaSlovenia

Age and participation (yearly)

Flawed data

Age and participation (weekly)

Flawed data

Employment and participation

Wages and participation

• It appears that participation is affected by wages and employment more in Catholic countries (Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia)

Logistic regression results (OR)

Wages have significant negative effect in Poland (OR=0.715; p=0.041) and Slovakia (OR=0.704; p=0.052), but positive in Slovenia (OR=1.803; p=0.028).

Conclusions

• Regarding the model– it does not explain the development completely;

although, it has some merits• Regarding the model and alternative theories

– it appears that different theories might work better as complements rather than substitutes

• Regarding religious participation– economic factors do matter for religiosity– secularization in post-communist countries may

follow Western models in future