If people become more religious, do they become happier? Marion Burkimsher

1 Never 2 Only family ceremonies 3 Only religious celebrations 4 Religious celebrations & family events 5 Few times/year 6 About once/month 7 Every 2 weeks 8 Once a week 9 Several times a week 1 Never 2 Occasional 3 Regular Recoding religious attendance (…any religion)

Data issues with attendance Many missing waves A lot of change in individual’s attendance frequency

Data issues with satisfaction Clustering around 8 Some people very stable, others very variable

Context of secularisation:trends in attendance  Decline in regular attendance

Satisfaction by religious attendance  Decline in satisfaction across all subgroups  Attenders are more satisfied with life than non-attenders  Note same vertical for all satisfaction graphs

Attendance rates by age, average Age groups which most commonly stop attending: teens and elderly (80+) Age groups which most commonly start attending: 70s, 60s & 30s (women more)

Life satisfaction by age, average

Do people become happier if they start attending religious services regularly? and… Do people become less happy if they stop attending religious services regularly? Happiness = life satisfaction = subjective well being = SWB in this study

Analyses Attendance (3 groups) & change in satisfaction (+ or - 10pts) in following pairs of years (6 years apart): No attendance data collected in 2010 and 2011  (Subsequent collection of religious data every 3 years, 2015…)

1 st yearLast year 1Always regularRegular  Regular 2Always occasionalOccasional  Occasional 3Always rareRare  Rare 4Stopped regularRegular  Occasional/rare 5Occasional>rareOccasional  Rare 6Rare>occasionalRare  Occasional 7Started regularRare/occasional  Regular Typology of attenders

Average satisfaction: ‘ continuous’ attenders & those who stopped  Those who drop out are already less satisfied at year 1

Average satisfaction Non-regular attenders and those who started  Those who start attending also less satisfied at year 1

Who are the happiest? Who are the saddest? Looking at all age groups and religious typology groups

Who becomes happier? Who becomes sadder? Differentiated by age group  Teens, 20s, 40s, 50s, 60s most like to become happier if start attending more  Teens, 20s, 30s, 50s, 60s most likely to become sadder if attend less  Anomalies: 50s, 70s start attending>sadder; 20s, 40s always regular

Logistic regression results Average coefficients from 5 pairs of years In some pairs of years the factors were statistically significant, in others not

Conclusions? Changes in religious attendance can be associated with change in life satisfaction… Many of these changes associated with specific age groups / stages of the life course Increased attendance can be associated with an increase in life satisfaction (and v.v for decrease) But it can be associated with increased sadness… (in 50s and elderly) A propensity to change frequency of attendance is associated with lower general life satisfaction

So why the differential in happiness? People who are more religious have less likelihood of: Separation & divorce Remaining single Remaining childless They also tend to have: More healthy behaviours (accountability) A community of accepting fellow believers (hopefully) Can see temporal problems in context of the eternal These will tend to lead to less likelihood of unhappiness But this involves long-term life choices and behaviours

Thank you!