At Encounter, we focus on religious literacy which we feel is vital given the undeniable reality that religious diversity is increasing in Western societies and even globally. We will remain committed to this work.
But a fascinating study recently came out looking at a different question – namely, is religion declining globally? Previous research I’ve seen typically shows a mixed picture. A lot of data shows religion has been declining for decades in Western Europe and more recently in the United States, but in other areas of the globe, you can find different pockets of growth, stability and decline. However, this paper titled “The three stages of religious decline around the world,” makes a compelling case that if you know what to look for, you will see a more global portrait of decline, with only a few exceptions. I’ve never encountered such a rich portrait of global religiosity so, below, let’s take a peek at what it says.
Photo credit: Natures Communication.com
The Three Stages of Religious Decline
The researchers’ key insight is the idea that religious decline happens in a consistent process with three phases: “first, participation in public rituals declines; second, importance of religion drops, and third, people shed their formal belonging” (italics added). They call this the Participation–Importance–Belonging (P-I-B) sequence.
What really grabs attention is their amazing data graph (below). It takes a minute to understand it but once you do, it’s quite revealing.
Here’s how it works. The countries are arranged from most religious (at top) to least religious (at bottom). The bars show the gap in religiosity in all three measures by age cohort. In short, are people under 40 more or less religious than those over 40 in the same country. A positive score (meaning the bar goes to the right) indicates religious decline – i.e. those under 40 are less religious than their elders. The three colours are for the three measures as indicated.
Photo credit: Nature Communications.com
If you look at the top two countries, Ethiopia and Indonesia, they are, by virtue of being at the top, the most religious countries in the study. When you look at their bars, you can see participation has declined as indicated by the small blue bars that go to the right. However, there are also tiny green bars going to the left showing that importance has actually grown slightly. Slightly further down, three bars really stick out for going noticeably left. These bars indicate the countries of Ghana, Liberia and Rwanda. In all three, the young are more religious than the old, bucking the trend of most of the countries shown. Two-thirds of the way down is another outlier bar going left. That country is Israel about which I will say more below.
As you can see, the dominant trend by far is that the bars overwhelmingly go right indicating a portrait of overall decline. The nature of that decline varies however.
The Types of Decline
Now look at the graph as a whole and notice the dominant colours. In the top third of the graph, the bars mostly go right and there is a lot of blue. This indicates that the main form of change in these countries is a decline in religious participation. In the middle third, two things are noticeable. First the bars are much bigger indicating larger declines. But, in addition, there’s a lot more green now and sometimes red. This shows that participation is declining here too but at a larger pace and, in addition, more of these folks are indicating that religion isn’t as important to them as it was to their elders. They’ve pulled out of participating in ritual and they say it’s less important to them. Finally, in the bottom third, the bars have lots of red. These bars also have blue and green (meaning participation and importance are also declining) but now many are leaving altogether and, hence, we find big red sections.
Photo credit: Canva.com
Remember that countries are ordered by religiosity (most religious at the top) so here is the pattern noted in the quote earlier – namely that in highly religious contexts, participation is what starts to slip. As religiosity of the public lessens, then more folks start saying it’s not as important to them. And when you enter the later stages of secularization, people stop identifying with the tradition altogether (i.e. noted as belonging).
Does Type of Religion Matter?
Another strength of this study is that it looks at so many countries and thus many types of religion. In the past, I’ve found research suggesting that religiosity is maintaining strength in Muslim majority countries and that secularism affects Christian and East Asian religions more.
Photo credit: Canva.com
Here, though, across many Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, Morocco, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, Turkey and others, you witness a consistent pattern of decline. In some the decline is small and might be mostly about participation. In others, it’s more significant.
It is nonetheless true that type of religion matters. The countries at the top are overwhelmingly Muslim majority countries or sub-Saharan African (which are a mix of Christian or Muslim). Around the middle of the graph are many Latin American countries which are therefore less religious and, visually, you can see the bars there are much bigger than the top third. So they are less religious and are losing their religiosity much more quickly. The bottom third is filled with Western and East Asian countries. South Korea, for example, has the second largest bar with only Poland showing more decline.
Israel is an Outlier
Israel stands out for two reasons. It is one of the few countries where the young are more religious. But, in addition, it is the only country where the bar shows growth even though the overall religiosity of the country is quite low. In short, in no other place on earth do you see a country where advanced secularism is in retreat. Why is this?
Photo credit: wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA 2.0
In short, it’s the high fertility of the most religious Israelis. The Jewish community generally emphasizes having children partly of a sense of obligation to replenish a community that lost a third of its global population in the Holocaust and that is determined to not disappear. Israel, as a result, is an unusually fertile place. Even secular Jews average two children which is high compared to other liberal democracies. But Orthodox Jews average around four children and the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi average closer to six children. Thus, while Israel was founded as a secular country, it is becoming more religious all the time as its most religious citizens birth many more children.
What Does the Future Look Like?
This is trickier. The most obvious takeaway from above is that the globe will become less religious over time. The over time is significant. At the top of the chart, you have some very religious countries where the drop is quite minor, at least for now.
But the expectation of ongoing decline has a catch. Namely, that more secular people have less children. That distinction we witnessed in Israel is true elsewhere (though not at the same magnitude). Thus, of the top four countries on the list (the most religious countries shown), three of them have birthrates around four children per woman. Amongst those irreligious countries at the bottom, none of them have a fertility rate close to that. Even within a given country, religious folks often have more children. Ryan Burge produced the following data for the USA. As you can see, having no religion dramatically affects fertility rates.
Photo credit: Ryan Burge’s Substack
So, on the one hand, religion is waning (quickly in some places, slowly in others). But, on the other hand, the religious are the ones who produce children. What then is the net effect?
In truth, I don’t think we know. It seems a safe bet that the world is going to become more African and more Muslim in the coming decades (due to high fertility rates and more resilient religiosity). Israel will become more religious. But we don’t know what happens yet when secular people the world over continue to not reproduce themselves.
I think we are witnessing and will continue to witness a lot of change in our religious portrait. We will also have more folks who are not well versed in religion themselves. To that end, gaining literacy on this topic will be important for understanding one another and global events.
