Why did religiosity decrease in the Western World during the twentieth century?
Citation (APA): Iannaccone, W. d. r. d. i. t. W. R. F. L. R. (2014). Why did religiosity decrease in the Western World during the twentieth century? [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
Parte introduttiva
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Secolarizzazione (+ ricchezza - religiosità) vs Securizzazione ( - rischi - religiosità) Dati: la frequenza USA è stabile; in occidente crolla. Ip. secu.: la Chiesa spiazzata nei servizi di welfare L' ipotesi secu. sembra prevalere anche se l' ip. seco. conserva un suo valore. Ad ogni modo, mentre opporsi a seco. sembra impossibile, opporsi a secu è più realistico e offre l' alleanza dei liberisti.
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Why did religiosity decrease in the Western World during the twentieth century? Raphaël Franck Laurence R. Iannaccone
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1. Introduction
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almost always focus on church attendance,
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United States,
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remarkable long-run stability,
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Yet scholars continue sifting through these data,
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Hadaway et al. (1993)
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hypothesize a form of invisible secularization
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There are actually two major theories of religiosity: the religion-market model and the secularization hypothesis.
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The religion-market model,
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T
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Iannaccone and Stark
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religious participation is mainly “supply-driven”.
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They view governmental interventions as major determinants of religiosity. As such, the existence of a state religion is expected to increase church participation (Barro and McCleary, 2005). A case in point is the policy of French King Louis XIV (1638-1715) who compelled the inhabitants of Paris to attend mass on Sundays lest they go to jail (Bluche, 1990). Conversely, the development of the welfare state is thought to decrease church attendance by crowding out the churches’ charitable activities (Gruber and Hungerman, 2007; Hungerman, 2005, 2009) and reducing their ability to insure their members against adverse income shocks (see Dehejia et al., 2007).3 Indeed, Gill and Lundsgaarde (2004) find there is a negative relationship between public spending and church attendance in cross-sectional data for a sample of countries in 1995.
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x ES STORICI
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following Weber
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secularization hypothesis
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Chaves (1994) and Bruce (2001)
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consider that religious participation is “demanddriven”.
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They argue that economic development, which includes industrialization, increases in literacy and wealth, and a decrease in fertility rates, entails a decline in religiosity. This secularization process supposedly leads individuals to define themselves as less religious and decreases the influence of religion on social and political institutions.
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x
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economic development has an overall negative effect on religiosity.
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EVIDENZA MISTA
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Urbanization also makes individuals less observant
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Still, studies by Finke and Stark (1992), Iannaccone and Stark (1994), and Stark (1999) among others, argue that there is no empirical evidence to support secularization theories.
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it focuses on the changes in religiosity in the Western World during the twentieth century
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QS STUDIO
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polls conducted by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP).
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DATI
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United States, Canada and most of Western Europe,
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The ISSP data unequivocally show that church attendance decreased in the West during the twentieth century.
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particularly noticeable in some countries,
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Great Britain,
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less so in others like Ireland,
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decline in church attendance was particularly pronounced after the 1960s,
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high growth rates and the development of the welfare state.
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Our regression results suggest that the factors which are associated with the secularization hypothesis, e.g., lower fertility, higher income and increased urbanization, had little or no effect on church attendance in the Western World during the twentieth century. Instead, they relate the decline in religiosity to the growth of the welfare state.
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xCONCLUSIONE
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Before the 1960s,
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individuals would look to churches to obtain welfare
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Afterwards,
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stopped attending church because the welfare state provided them with a secular alternative
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education
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healthcare benefits.
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2. Data
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T
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we first present the ISSP data
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twentieth century.
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religiosity declined in Western European
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as well as in the USA and in Canada.
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2.1. Long-run data on church attendance
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T
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Survey Program (ISSP) allow us to reconstruct long-run church attendance
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30 different countries
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between 1925 and 1990,
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Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.
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they were democracies throughout the twentieth century.4
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they did not undertake policies to encourage or discourage church attendance,
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these ten countries have historically been Christian,
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2.1.1. Retrospective data on church attendance
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ISSP surveys asked the following: 1) “[W]hen you were around 11 or 12, how often did you attend religious services then?” 2) “When you were a child, how often did your father attend religious services?” 3) “When you were a child, how often did your mother attend religious services?” Replies were coded into standard categories, ranging from “never” to “several times each week.”
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x DOMANDE
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2.2.2. Trends in church attendance
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T
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U.S. surveys have consistently found attendance rates around 40% per week
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a downturn in childhood attendance starting in the mid-1960s and converging to parental rates by the mid-1980s.
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it took place as welfare state programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and the “War on Poverty”,
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developed during the 1960s under the presidencies of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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Great Britain
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steady and substantial decline in rates of adult religious participation throughout the twentieth century
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In the Netherlands, the decline arrived more suddenly and proceeded more rapidly.
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The data reviewed by Laeyendecker (1995), Lechner (1996), Sengers (2001), and others identify the 1960s as a period of crisis for the Catholic Church, after which Dutch religious activity trends sharply downward.
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x 1960
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profiles
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decisive turning point
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OLANDA
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long term decline
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GB
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relatively long-term stability
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USA
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2.2. The causes of the decline in church attendance: the secularization hypothesis and the religion-market model
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T
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2.2.1. Income
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VARIABILI
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secularization hypothesis suggests that higher income entails a decrease in religiosity.
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The religion-market model would however suggest that the growth in GDP per capita would have no effect on religious observance.
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2.2.2. Human capital
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T VARIABILE
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The secularization hypothesis predicts that an increase in human capital, measured by higher education levels and lower fertility, decreases religiosity.
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However, the religion-market model would suggest that there is no straightforward relationship
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For instance, McCleary and Barro (2006a) show that church attendance increases with education.
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it is also not clear whether the decline in religiosity during the twentieth century can be attributed to the technological advances
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VARIABILE
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It would indeed seem that Einstein’s relativity theory and the personal computer are less of a challenge to faith than nineteenth century theories such as Darwin’s evolution theory and the documentary hypothesis.12 In addition, it seems unlikely that these nineteenth-century discoveries, which some view as questioning the very basis of religion, would only have an impact after 1900.
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x
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2.2.3. Urbanization and industrialization
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T VAROABILE
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If economic development decreases religiosity
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then countries where a growing share of the population works in industry, which we assess with the Industries variable, should become more secular.
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industrialization usually goes hand in hand with urbanization,
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The religion market model however makes opposite
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in rural areas, there are tightly-knit communities where individuals can rely on each other for support.
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in urban areas, individuals seeking relief would turn to religious
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2.2.4. The welfare state
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T
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secularization hypothesis,
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does not have any specific predictions
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religion-market model
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increase in public spending
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lowered charity donations
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as a result, limited their charity endeavors.
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On the one hand, we use the Govt-Spending-Education and Govt-Spending-Health variables, which respectively represent the share of education- and health-related expenditures in the country’s total public expenditures. On the other hand, we employ the Govt-Spending-Family and Govt-Spending-Old-Age variables, which measure the share of family- and old age-related expenditures in the country’s GDP. These four variables capture the scope of public spending
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x
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4. Results
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T
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4.1 Wealth and human capital
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T
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In all but two regressions
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GDP per capita variable does not have any effect on religiosity.
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In those two regressions where it is significant
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Log GDP per capita is shown to have a positive impact on religiosity.
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invalidation of the secularization hypothesis.
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This result also suggests that McCleary and Barro (2006a)’s finding on the negative relationship between GDP growth and religious observance, which they obtained by using data on church attendance in the 1980s and 1990s, does not hold when data going back to the 1920s are included in a panel data specification.
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x
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Actually, such a result would be in line with the historical studies which showed that the dechristianization of Western Europe occurred during the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, i.e., before the rapid growth in GDP per capita that took place during the twentieth century.
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c
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higher education
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McCleary and Barro (2006a) had already remarked that higher levels of education could be associated with higher religiosity.
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In our study, the Secondary Education variable is positive and significant in several regressions
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However it is negative and significant in two of our regressions
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the Post-Secondary Education variable is not significant in any of our regressions.
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Hence, while our results on the increase in education during the twentieth century are not in line with secularization theories, they are also not robust enough for us to suggest that they invalidate another prediction of the secularization hypothesis.
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x
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fertility
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has a positive and significant effect in only one of our regressions
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in line with the secularization hypothesis
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not altogether inconsistent with the religion-market model. This is because proponents of the religion-market model would suggest that individuals with either few or no children would not attend church since they do not need its social services, such as child day care.
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x MA
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4.2 Urbanization and Industrialization
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T
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has a positive and significant coefficient in almost all the OLS regressions
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INDUSTRIA
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Urban variable has a positive and significant coefficient in several OLS
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these results fail to confirm the predictions of secularization
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consistent with the claims of the religion-market model,
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4.3 Public spending on welfare services
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T
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growth in public spending on education led to a decline in religiosity.
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a one percent increase in the share of education-related expenditures in the country’s total public expenditures (Govt-Spending-Education) decreased the religiosity of our survey respondents (the Children variable) by an estimated 0.411% to 0.887% on average and of their Parents by 0.323% to 0.591%.
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ES
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the same order of magnitude as the findings of Gill and Lundsgaarde (2004).
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5. Who stopped attending church during the twentieth century?
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T
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breaking them down between gender and denomination.
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men, women, Catholics and Protestants.22
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reduces the sample
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This is because there are no Catholics in Denmark, Norway and Sweden
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the effects of the welfare state are larger
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for women than for men, and more systematic for Catholics than for Protestants.
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welfare state. It crowded out the charitable activities of the churches
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when an activity, namely church attendance, becomes less valuable, fewer self-interested rational individuals take part in it.
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effect of public spending is larger on the religiosity of young
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rational behavior of agents who are dynamic optimizers.
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older parishioners who had been going to church throughout their lives would obviously be less influenced
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such a perspective on religiosity implies an instrumental view of religious
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our results do suggest that a sizeable fraction of religious participants were motivated by the churches’ provisions
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6. Conclusion
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T
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These data,
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span the 1925-1990 period,
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Our results provide scant evidence for the secularization hypothesis. They do not support the claims that the growth in income had a negative effect on religiosity. In addition, they fail to find any negative effect of fertility, education, industrialization and urbanization on church attendance. Conversely, our findings are consistent with the claims of the religion market model, which argues that governmental interventions have an impact on religious participation.
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the development of the welfare state significantly decreased religiosity.
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churches funded welfare services which the State did not provide; they became secular when the welfare state crowded out
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there are still countries notably in the Middle East and in Central Asia, where extremist religious movements are pointed out as a major source of political instability and violence. This paper thus suggests that the promotion of a secular welfare state may represent the best way to undermine these movements
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while this paper shows that the growth of the welfare state explains the decline in church participation during the twentieth century, it also calls into question the relevance of the factors, like education and wealth, which have traditionally been used to explain the demand for religiosity. As such, this study suggests that other factors, such as habit formation, may perhaps provide a better explanation of the demand for religion. sss sss sss
