The religious divide within Europa Jaak Billiet CCT of ESS Data Collection & Analysis/Suvey Methodology K.U. Leuven

Religious devide within Europe2 Religious involvement not the focus of ESS RI = aspect of social identity & diversity Mainly to be used as a predictor (explanatory variable) for other phenomena: - some value orientations - citzenship & political orientations - attitudes towards immigration - social capital… - social trust Aspect in testing theories about social change… introduction

Religious devide within Europe3 1.The measurement of religious involvement 2.Indications of diversity within Europe 3.Religious involvement and social & value orientations: a descriptive overview in a biplot 4.Opportunities in ESS for testing Models 5.Conclusion… outline

Religious devide within Europe4 Questions in core - belonging to religion or denomination at present (Yes/No) - past belonging (Yes/No) - which religion or denomination? (general + cntry specific) - how religious? (not—very: 0-10 p scale) - participation in public religious services (every day-never 7p) - how ofter pray apart from previous? (every day-never 7p) plus two additional questions… Measurement of religious involvement

Religious devide within Europe5 Additonal questions in module on citizenship - membership of religious associations(Yes/no) - importance of religion (very unimportant— important: 0-10p) Aim = measures for all religions Measurement of religious involvement

Religious devide within Europe6 Three constructs for 15 countries, N = 29,517 (1)Most simple = Public religious practice (PUB_REL) a combination of question on actual belonging and participation in public religious services problem that needs further analysis: number of those who do not belong, do participate (4% regularly and 13.5% on Holy days - happens in all age categories). Measurement of religious involvement

Religious devide within Europe7 Table 1. Index of participation in public religious services (all samples weighted by pweight). Combination of actual belonging and participation Index % Weekly Regular Only Holy days Not practicing Not pract & not belonging Missing 22, Total

Religious devide within Europe8 Weekly practice vs. not belonging 56,4 53,7 28, ,7 19,7 19,6 12,6 12,4 11,2 8,8 4,9 4,7 4,6 11,6 3,8 15,2 1,1 19,7 19,5 30, ,1 31, ,3 20,7 36,9 58, IEPLPTGRILESSIGBNLHUCHCZFINOSE % weeklyNot belonging

Religious devide within Europe9 (2) Typology used by sociologists of Religion: Measurement of religious involvement

Religious devide within Europe10 Table2. Typology for religious commitment (all samples weighted by pweight) Typology % Core member Modal member Marginal member Not religious 1 st gen Not religious 2d gen missing , Total

Religious devide within Europe11

Religious devide within Europe12 (3) Latent (metric) variable (scale 0 – 10) degree of religiosity 10p 0.86 frequency participation 7p Religious 0.73 involvement 0.80 frequency of praying 10p 0.87 importance of religion 10p Model complete factorial invariant for all countries Measurement of religious involvement

Religious devide within Europe13

Religious devide within Europe14 See previous tables and graphs In some cases: not belonging > belonging (NL, CZ, SE) In some cases: weekly practice > not belonging ( IE, PL, and Southern Europe) In other countries: not belonging much larger than weekly practice (GB, NL, HU, CH, CZ, NO,…) poles in religious involvement: GR & PO CZ & SE Differences Catholic countries versus Protestant countries Indications of diversity

Religious devide within Europe15 The flavour for further reseach with ESS data Possible questions : Have these differences implications for social- political orientations, or are these irrelevant? How to explain the differences by individual and by country variables? Indications of religious diversity

Religious devide within Europe16 A snatch from the possible issues in ESS that may have links to religious involvement - social trust (trust in ‘most people) - trust in politics - human values (traditionalism, social justice, achievement… ) - attitude towards immigrants - political interest, citizenship - etc… Religious diverse and value orientations

Religious devide within Europe17 Biplot: map of value orietations, attitudes and groups (country means) = first impression of diversity Selection: biplot of religious involvement and - soc_trust (social trust = view on ‘most other people’ as being faithful, helfpful..) - pol_trust (trust in politicians & political institutions) - conformism: (important to follow the rules & behave properly) - pleasure (important to do things that give pleasure) - helpful (important to help people around) Religious diverse and value orientations

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Religious devide within Europe19 Contrasts in display somewhat blowed up Correlations of religious involvement with conformity = (expected) helpful = (expected ‘own readiness to help) social trust = (unexpected, unless… « how others are…’, ’hostile world’, defensive attitude of religious???» political trust = 0.00 (no relation!) hedonism (pleasure) = (expected) Many open questions for reseach Religious diverse and value orientations

Religious devide within Europe20 A snatch of competing theories + focus on country level Secularisation theory (a.o. Berger & Luckman, 1966; Breault, 1998; Bruce, 1992; Dobbelaere, 1999, 2002; Olson, 1998; Billiet et al. 2003) « religious heterogeneity of country  less religious involvement because pluralism & competition augments relativism and demolishes the plausibility structures » Rational choice theory (Stark, 1997; Iannacone, 1997; Finke, 1997) « religious heterogeneity & pluralism  more religious involvement since a plurality of religious firms compete for customers ». Opportunities for testing models

Religious devide within Europe21 Opportunities to test these (and other) theories because of amount of relevant variables at individual level and useful reference to sources at context (country) level. Test of multilevel model (mixed model) with group level (countries) and two additional context variables: GDP_CAP (gross domestic product/capita) and Religious pluralism (Herfindahl+Scheepers) computed with distributions of denominations in datasets Opportunities for testing models

Religious devide within Europe22 Findings (without subjective vars in model) A.Differences between countries - Large differences in explained variance at individual level: between 6% (NE) and 26% (PT) - relevant variables are known less involvement: Male, younger = in all countries ever_job, urban, TV watching = in most countries - countries with little individual explained variance NE, CH, CZ, SE, SI, NO (all low level)…. but also PO (high level) Opportunities for testing models

Religious devide within Europe23 BMulti-level model (without IL) - 23% expl var at individual level (without subjective vars & denominations); 41% at group level -Gdp_cap no effect in this group of 14 countries -Religous pluralism = negative effect (religious heterogeneity of country decreases religious involvement) is in line with SEC theory and previous findings (Chaves & Gorski 1988; Billiet et al with other data) Opportunities for testing models

Religious devide within Europe24 -Much is still unexplained at country level = work to do with context vars… -strongest effect of age and gender on religious involvement -But…many interactions of expl vars with countries = differences in individual explanations within countries examples: gender difference in religiosity larger in ES, FI, HU, PT than in reference group (SZ) age differences larger in ES, HU and IE and smaller in SIWHY?… Opportunities for testing models

Religious devide within Europe25 … many questions and challenges… use the data in order to obtain better understanding of European societies To conclude…