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Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel
Open accessAbstract
Two important theories of religiosity are the secularization hypothesis and the religion‐market model. According to the former, sometimes called a demand‐side theory, economic development reduces religious participation and beliefs. According to the latter, described as a supply‐side theory, religiosity depends on the presence of a state religion, regulation of the religion market, suppression of organized religion under Communism, and the degree of religious pluralism. We assess the theories by using survey information for 68 countries over the last 20 years, measuring attendance at formal religious services, religious beliefs, and self‐identification as religious. In accordance with the secularization view, overall economic development—represented by per capita GDP—tends to reduce religiosity. Moreover, instrumental estimates suggest that this link reflects causation from economic development to religiosity, rather than the reverse. The presence of an official state religion tends to increase religiosity, probably because of the subsidies that flow to organized religion. However, in accordance with the religion‐market model, religiosity falls with government regulation of the religion market and Communist suppression. Greater religious pluralism raises attendance at formal services but has no significant effects on religious beliefs or self‐identification as religious. Although religiosity declines overall with economic development, the nature of the interaction varies with the dimension of development. For example, religiosity is positively related to education and the presence of children and negatively related to urbanization.
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“McCleary and Barro (2006) focused on GDP per capita as the most indicative marker of economic development, demonstrating significant negative relationships between economic development and religiosity.”
From Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity (2012) · cites this paper as McCleary and Barro 2006
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“The conditions-of-living model has been tested and supported, in part, by examining the relationships between religiosity and economic conditions across countries.”
From Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity (2012) · cites this paper as McCleary and Barro 2006
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“Although we found that the multiple religiosity variables were correlated with societal wealth variables, as predicted by the conditions-of-living model in Inglehart and Baker (2000), Norris and Inglehart (2004), and McCleary and Barro (2006), the effect of parasite-stress for explaining variation in religiosity was still significant when the effects of societal wealth and resource inequality were”
From Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity (2012) · cites this paper as McCleary and Barro (2006)
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“For completeness, we correlated each of our three crossnational measures of religiosity described in section 4.2 with the religious pluralism index produced by McCleary and Barro (2006) ( Proportion of Religionists : r ¼ 2 .14, n ¼ 67, p ¼ .2553; Proportion of Believers : r ¼ 2 .02, n ¼ 63, p ¼ .8959; Religious Participation and Value : r ¼ .05, n ¼ 63, p ¼ .6920).”
From Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity (2012) · cites this paper as McCleary and Barro (2006)
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Metadata
- Authors
- McCLEARY, R. M., & BARRO, R. J.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- McCLEARY, RACHEL M.
- BARRO, ROBERT J.
- Venue
- Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2006-05-18
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 149-175
- ISSN
- 0021-8294 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-5906
- OpenAlex
- W2022571798
- Cited by
- 416
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 74.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- John Templeton Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Religion and Society Interactions
- Social Sciences › Development › Culture, Economy, and Development Studies
- Social Sciences › Law › Religious Freedom and Discrimination
- Keywords
- religiosity, economic development, state religion, religious pluralism, religious service attendance, religious beliefs, religious identification, GDP per capita, urbanization
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