trends in religious observance and fertility behaviour: global empirical results and theoretical...

Trends in religious observance and fertility behaviour:

global empirical results and theoretical models

Marion Burkimsher

Observatoire des Religions en Suisse

Université de Lausanne

How do we come to be here today?

Georgia: Proportion of age group attending religious services at least once a month

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

18-21 22-26 27-31 32-36 37-41 42-46 47-51 52-56 57-61 62-66 67-71 72-76 77-80

Age group

%

Women Men

Data source: GGP wave 1, 2006

Topics covered in presentation

• Religious attendance rates of young v. older people

• Trends in young people’s religiosity

• Trends in cohort religiosity

• Trends in attendance related to Human Development Index

• Relationship of fertility to religiosity

Age, cohort, period variations

• Age is an effect caused by a person’s age: trends will be caused because they get older over time

• Cohort effects are the influences of living through similar experiences of everyone born in eg. the 1950s, 1970s…

• Period effects affect everyone in a country in a fairly similar manner

Voas and others have found that cohort differentials (with each generation being less religious than the previous one) are the most important drivers of secularisation.

In Georgia the opposite is happening - a revival led by the young. In addition there are period affects of increased participation within cohorts

Relative religiosity of different age bands (age at time of survey)

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

16-19 20-22 23-25 26-28 29-31 32-39 40s 50s 60s 70 andover

Age band

Relative religiosity

DE, DK, FR, GB, NL, NO, SE 7 countries plus IT 7 countries plus IT, BE & ES

Reference category

Data: WVS 1981, 1990, 1999 ESS 2006

Effect on mean attendance rate from changing cohort mix

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1981 1990 1999 2008

Year of survey

% attenders

Cohort 1 (oldest) Cohort 2 Cohort 3 Cohort 4 Cohort 5 (youngest)

Trend in mean

participation rate

Pattern of religious attendance by country

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Proportion of young people who are attenders (%)

Proportion of older people who are attenders (%)

Ratio 2:1 of old:young attendance rates

Ratio 1:1 of old:young attendance rates

Georgia

Armenia

Bulgaria

Bosnia/Herz

PhilippinesZimbabwe

Uganda

Nigeria

Ireland

Switzerland

Spain

Greece

Japan

China

Andorra

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Hungary

NetherlandsBelgium

Zambia

Ghana

Rwanda

Australia

WVS & ESS data mainly

Cohort differentials in attendance rates, older cohorts

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1930s 1940s 1950s

Cohort bands

Average attendance rates, %

Austria

Belgium

Denmark

Spain

Finland

France

Great Britain

Ireland

Italy

Netherlands

Norway

Portugal

Sweden

Switzerland

Bulgaria

Czech Rep

Estonia

Georgia

Hungary

Latvia

Poland

Romania

Russia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Conclusions / 1

• In only a few countries of the world are young people more

religious than older people: those with this pattern are in Africa

and some ex-communist countries

• In (almost) all countries in both western and eastern Europe the

cohorts born in the 1940s are less religious than those born in the

1930s AND those born in the 1950s are less religious than those

born in the 1940s

• It would seem that there was a sea change in the post-war

generations compared those born before or during the 2nd World

War: the religiosity of those born before and during the war could

be a legacy of those times of insecurity (Norris & Inglehart, 2004)

How to deduce real (=period) trends?

Need time series of data. The WVS and ESS can now offer this.

Using both, we can look at the period 1981-2008 for some

countries, though only post-1989 for the ex-communist states.

Then either:

Look at trends of a certain age group. Young people are

likely to react first to new trends. Therefore I have chosen to

look at the under-30s.

And / or:

Look at trends for specific cohorts, ie. the generations born

in different decades

Two questions from WVS

1. “Independently of whether you go to church or not, would you say you are:

• A religious person• Not a religious person• A convinced atheist” (this response was analysed)

2. “How often do you attend religious services?”

• at least once a month = ‘Attender’

Self-reported attendance rates (may over- or under-

estimate, depending on expectations of society)

Head counts of people in church can give lower

estimates

NB: Includes any religion

Active believers Non-religious

Attend religious services Self-defined atheist

Believe in God…

Personal prayer

Affiliation (‘belonging’)

No belief in God

Never prays

No affiliation

Fuzzies

Notes about graphs:

Vertical scales vary slide to slide

Thin continuous lines denote proportion of attenders

Dashed lines denote the proportion of atheists

Country groupings and corresponding labels are arbitrary

Hypothetical illustration: proportion of young people who are atheists/attenders

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Country 1 atheists Country 2 atheists Country 1 attenders Country 2 attenders

Country 1 is experiencing revivalCountry 2 is experiencing secularisation

WVS and ESS data

Ex-USSR countries - proportion of young people who are atheists/attenders

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Russian Fed atheists Georgia atheists Latvia atheists Lithuania atheists Ukraine atheists

Russian Fed attenders Georgia attenders Latvia attenders Lithuania attenders Ukraine attenders

Conclusions / 2

• Some countries show clear indications of secularisation, eg.

Australia, Canada, Sweden, Ireland, Poland, Spain

• Some countries show clear indications of revival, eg. Georgia,

Russia, Romania, China

• In many countries the changes are not statistically significant

• There is a loose inverse correlation of attendance and atheism

• Since 2000 there has been a greater tendency to polarisation

than in the 1980s or 1990s

• The age group with the highest proportion of atheists is generally

the young (<30), though can also be the middle-aged (30-49)

• The age group with the highest attendance rate is almost

invariably the older group (50+)

• The biggest losses have been from the Catholic church

• The biggest gains have been in the national Orthodox churches

• Some countries have seen youth attendance rates of <5%,

but these low rates have not been maintained

Cohorts trends, countries experiencing revival

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Year of survey

Attendance rates, %

Romania 1950s Romania 1960s Romania 1970sLatvia 1950s Latvia 1960s Latvia 1970sRussia 1950s Russia 1960s Russia 1970sGeorgia 1950s Georgia 1960s Georgia 1970s

Data for Georgia: GGS in 2006 and EVS in 2008All other data is from WVS and ESS

Cohort differentials of post-war cohorts, secularising countries

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Cohort bands


Austria

Belgium

Spain

Ireland

Italy

Portugal

Switzerland

Poland

Netherlands

Countries with quite stable cohort differentials

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Cohort bands


Denmark

Finland

France

Great Britain

Norway

Sweden

Bulgaria

Czech Rep

Estonia

Hungary

Latvia

Russia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Cohort differentials of post-war cohorts, countries experiencing revival

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Cohort bands


Georgia

Romania

Conclusions / 3

• In countries where young people are at least as religious as older people, then growth is commonly happening. This is most marked in Georgia, but it is also seen in Romania, Latvia and Russia.

• In countries where most secularisation is happening, then period effects are causing a decline in religiosity across many cohorts - AND there are large inter-cohort differentials. This is seen mainly in the predominantly Catholic countries (which often had higher attendance rates at the start of the period). Not all Catholic countries are being affected as strongly.

• In many countries there appears to be convergence to a certain level of religious observance; in the most secular countries this band is generally 6-12% of the younger cohorts. In other countries, there is convergence at a higher level.

• The two major events that have affected religious observance were the Second World War and the fall of communism.

Modernisation > secularisation?

Plotted lines for all countries which have data for both

1. Human Development Index (HDI)Composite indicator (max. 100) combining measures of:

Health: life expectancy at birth

Education: adult literacy and school enrolment

Wealth: GDP per capita (PPP)

2. Religious attendance (WVS) relating to the same year or max. 1 year different from the HDI data

To be able to plot a trend needed data points from at least 2 years

45 countries plus Georgia plotted

All countries moved from left to right, ie to a higher HDI, except Belarus and Russia

Religiosity-Human Development Index

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96HDI

% attenders

Nigeria

India

Philippines

Indonesia

Malta

Ireland

United States

Poland

Brazil

S Korea

Mexico

Italy

RomaniaTurkey

IranPortugal

Hungary Great Britain

Czech RepRussia

Latvia

BelarusChina

Viet Nam

Ukraine

Moldova

Bulgaria

Canada

Austria

Spain

Argentina

South AfricaPeru

Georgia-lowHDI Georgia-highHDI

WVS data only, attendance rates of full sample, ie relating to whole population

Religiosity-Human Development Index

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96HDI

% attenders

Nigeria

India

Philippines

Indonesia

Malta

Ireland

United States

Poland

Brazil

S Korea

Mexico

Italy

RomaniaTurkey

IranPortugal

Hungary Great Britain

Czech RepRussia

Latvia

BelarusChina

Viet Nam

Ukraine

Moldova

Bulgaria

Canada

Austria

Spain

Argentina

South AfricaPeru

Georgia-lowHDI Georgia-highHDI

Conclusions / 4

• There is a correlation of higher development being associated

with lower religiosity, but the spread of values is wide

• There is a natural level of religiosity related to a country’s level of

development and there is convergence towards this

• Some countries have had a period of revival, which has then

been followed by renewed secularisation if that revival took them

above the “normal band”, eg. South Korea, Brazil, Mexico,

Romania

• Many countries are approaching maximum development (as

defined by the HDI), but the minimum attendance rates would

appear to be around 10-20% of the population

Data table of fertility by religiosity

• 23 European countries, as surveyed in the ESS wave 3, 2006

• Looked at how many children individuals had had already

• Age band considered 25-40, ie 1966-1981 cohorts

• Majority of young adults in E. Europe reached reproductive age

after fall of communism is 1989

• Separated by gender, as men have lower fertility at younger age

and are generally (but not universally) less religious

Respondents were divided into 3 categories for this analysis:

1. If a person attends religious services at least once a month, they were classified as an Attender

2. Respondents who answered “No” to the following question were classified as Non-religious“Do you consider yourself as belonging to any particular religion or denomination?”

3. For the group of people who do not regularly attend, yet do consider themselves as belonging to a religion / denomination, they were classified as Fuzzies (a term coined by Voas, 2009). For the few people who said they did attend regularly, but also said they did not belong to a religion / denomination, then they were included in the “Attenders” group.

Female Male

Attenders Fuzzies Non-religious Attenders Fuzzies Non-religious

Scandinavia

Norway 1.37 1.43 1.30 1.50 1.17 0.93

Sweden 1.60 1.17 1.23 1.63 1.19 0.82

Finland 1.52 1.33 0.91 1.70 1.19 0.84

Denmark 1.69 1.56 1.04 1.50 1.38 0.63

Estonia 1.56 1.11 1.27 1.13 0.73 1.00

Mean 1.55 1.32 1.15 1.49 1.13 0.84

Catholic

Cyprus 1.71 1.92 2.55 0.66 0.78 1.47

Ireland 1.68 1.30 1.65 1.14 0.80 0.94

Poland 1.41 1.04 0.85 1.12 0.94 0.73

Portugal 1.24 1.12 0.98 0.69 0.83 0.51

Mean (not inc Cyprus) 1.44 1.15 1.16 0.98 0.86 0.73

Secular

Belgium 1.83 1.37 1.41 1.06 1.32 1.05

Germany 1.38 1.04 0.75 0.72 0.75 0.69

France 1.93 1.37 1.35 1.44 1.05 1.18

Netherlands 1.58 1.42 1.09 1.20 1.04 0.77

United Kingdom 1.61 1.20 1.34 1.56 1.12 0.86

Spain 1.31 0.83 0.65 1.00 0.70 0.42

Mean 1.61 1.21 1.10 1.17 1.00 0.83

Diverse

Austria 1.74 1.16 0.98 1.26 0.89 0.43

Slovenia 1.67 0.93 1.15 1.00 1.03 0.60

Slovakia 1.60 1.38 1.20 1.36 0.86 0.79

Switzerland 2.08 1.27 0.97 1.44 1.01 0.67

Ukraine 1.75 1.24 1.18 1.74 1.26 0.83

Mean 1.77 1.20 1.10 1.36 1.01 0.67

Ex-communist

Bulgaria 1.02 1.46 1.29 0.85 1.27 0.65

Hungary 1.86 1.61 1.32 0.56 0.82 0.91

Russian Federation 1.20 1.17 1.31 1.03 0.98 0.92

Mean 1.36 1.41 1.31 0.81 1.02 0.83

Mean number of children per woman by religious observance

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s

Decade of birth of women

Mena number of children

Non-attenders Attenders

Conclusions / 5

Scandinavia - low religious participation of young people for decades - relatively low differentials by religiosity

Catholic countries - high attendance rates, but also relatively low differentials - possible selection effect

‘Secular’ countries - relatively high differentials by religiosity, more for women than men

‘Diverse’ group - central European band - large differentials of fertility between the religious and secular, with Switzerland and Ukraine being the highest

Ex-communist countries - seen religious revivals to some extent - low differentials of fertility, sometimes reversed to ‘normal’ pattern.

Georgia fits in to the pattern of other ex-communist countries Possible causes: Legacy of discrimination from communist era?‘Modern’ religious behaviour parallels ‘modern’ fertility behaviour?

Overall conclusions

• Georgia is the only (surveyed) country in the world where young people are considerably more religiously active than older people

• There has been growth in young people’s attendance rates in Georgia from 1996-2008

• There has been growth in attendance rates in Georgia for the cohorts born in the 1950s, 60s and 70s between 1996 and 2008

• Georgia’s revival trend fits the model of religious attendance being related to HDI: the growth seen would bring it into the ‘natural’ band of expected attendance rates, based on its HDI. In the 1990s, the level of religiosity was ‘too low’ for its level of development

• Across most of Europe, higher religiosity correlates with higher fertility: in Georgia, as in some other ex-communist countries, the pattern is reversed

Thank you!

Anglo-Saxon countries: proportion of young people who are atheists/attenders

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Australia atheists Canada atheists NZ atheists US atheists GB atheists

Australia attenders Canada attenders NZ attenders US attenders GB attenders

Scandinavian countries - proportion of young people who are atheists/attenders

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Survey year

Denmark atheists Estonia atheists Finland atheists

Iceland atheists Norway atheists Sweden atheistsDenmark attenders Estonia attenders Finland attenders

Iceland attenders Norway attenders Sweden attenders

Germanic countries - proportion of young people who are atheists/attenders

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Austria atheists Germany atheists Netherlands atheists Slovenia atheists Switzerland atheists

Austria attenders Germany attenders Netherlands attenders Slovenia attenders Switzerland attenders

Northern Catholic countries - proportion of young people who are atheists/attenders

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Belgium atheists France atheists Ireland atheists Poland atheists

Belgium attenders France attenders Ireland attenders Poland attenders

Southern Europe - proportion of young people who are atheists/attenders

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Italy atheists Malta atheists Portugal atheists Spain atheists Turkey atheists

Italy attenders Malta attenders Portugal attenders Spain attenders Turkey attenders

Eastern European countries - proportion of young people who are atheists

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Bulgaria atheists Czech Rep atheists Hungary atheists Romania atheists Slovakia atheists

Bulgaria attenders Czech Rep attenders Hungary attenders Romania attenders Slovakia attenders

Asian countries - proportion of young people who are atheists

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

China atheists Japan atheists Rep Korea atheists

China attenders Japan attenders Rep Korea attenders

Cohort trends, secularising countries

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Attendance rates, %

Poland 1950s Poland 1960s Poland 1970s Ireland 1950s Ireland 1960s Ireland 1970s

Spain 1950s Spain 1960s Spain 1970s Belgium 1950s Belgium 1960s Belgium 1970s

Switzerland1950s Switzerland 1960s Switzerland 1970s Netherlands 1950s Netherlands 1960s Netherlands 1970s

In 2008:1950s cohort were 49-581960s cohort were 39-481970s cohort were 29-38

In 1981:

1950s cohort were 22-31

1960s cohort were 16-21

WVS and ESS data

Cohort trends, highly secularised countries

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Attendance rates, %

Norway 1950s Norway 1960s Norway 1970s Sweden 1950s Sweden 1960s Sweden 1970s

Denmark 1950s Denmark 1960s Denmark 1970s France1950s France 1960s France 1970s

Estonia 1950s Estonia 1960s Estonia 1970s Czech Rep 1950s Czech Rep 1960s Czech Rep 1970s

Cohort trends, Great Britain, Finland, Hungary and Bulgaria

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Year of survey

Attendance rates, %

Great Britain 1950s Great Britain 1960s Great Britain 1970s Finland 1950s Finland 1960s Finland 1970s

Hungary 1950s Hungary 1960s Hungary 1970s Bulgaria 1950s Bulgaria 1960s Bulgaria 1970s

Cohort trends of other moderately religious countries

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year of survey

Attendance rates, %

Portugal 1950s Portugal 1960s Portugal 1970s Italy 1950s Italy 1960s Italy 1970s

Austria 1950s Austria 1960s Austria 1970s Slovenia 1950s Slovenia 1960s Slovenia 1970s

Slovakia 1950s Slovakia 1960s Slovakia 1970s

trends in religious observance and fertility behaviour: global empirical results and theoretical...

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