Marital fertility and religion in Spain, 1985 and 1999

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Since the onset of democracy in 1975, both total fertility and Mass attendance rates in Spain have dropped dramatically. I use the 1985 and 1999 Spanish Fertility Surveys to study whether the significance of religion in fertility behavior -both in family size and in the spacing of births -has changed. While in the 1985 SFS family size was similar among practicing and non-practicing Catholics, practicing Catholics portray significantly higher fertility during recent years. In the context of lower church participation, religiosity has acquired a more relevant meaning for demographic behavior. Among the youngest generation, non-practicing Catholics behave as those without affiliation. The small group of Protestants and Muslims has the highest fertility and interfaith unions are less fertile.

2006

The paper explores the relationship between religiosity and fertility among Catholics in Spain, thereby answering the question whether the two parallel trends of dramatic drops in fertility and in religiosity are inter-related. It looks at current religiosity as well as exposure to religiosity during childhood. A unique, rich, data set is employed. It includes various dimensions of religiosity: respondent's religious affiliation; if he is Catholic-his current mass attendance (six levels) and his current prayer habits (eleven levels); spouse's religious affiliation; parental (maternal and paternal) and respondent's mass attendance when the respondent was a child (nine levels); Catholic education during childhood (yes/no). The multifacet data on religiosity (rather than a single dichotomous variable) facilitates a sophisticated analysis with rigorous conclusions. The sample is restricted to married Catholic (female and male) respondents who were raised by Catholic parents, and are married to a Catholic spouse, in order to have a homogenous sample and to focus on the effect of the level (intensity) of religiosity (rather than religious affiliation) on fertility. Fertility is related to the various dimensions of religiosity-first using cross-tabulation and then using OLS regression. We find that fertility is not related to current intensity of religiosity. Exposure to religious activities during childhood has a significant effect on fertility of women (but not men): interestingly a father who was actively attending mass services has a positive effect on his daughter's future fertility (increasing the number of kids by about 0.8) while the mother's active mass participation has a reverse negative effect (leading to a decrease of one kid). Own participation in mass services during childhood has a positive effect on fertility-leading to an increase of 0.6 kids if the girl attended mass services intensively This study indicates the significance of childhood experience in shaping the 'taste for children'. It also suggests that there is no direct link between the fast secularization in Spain and the decline in birth rates.

Review of Economics of the Household, 2007

Preferences, including preferences for children, are shaped during the formative years of childhood. It is therefore essential to include exposure to religious practice during childhood in an attempt to establish a link between religiosity and fertility. This path has not been explored in the documented literature that looks at the relationship between current religiosity and fertility. The International Social Survey Programme: Religion II (ISSP) provides the data base. It includes information on maternal/paternal/own mass participation when the respondent was a child (nine levels each), as well as on his current churchgoing (six levels) and prayer habits (eleven levels).These variables are included as explanatory variables in 'fertility equations' that explain the number of children of Catholic women in Spain and Italy. The core findings are that exposure to religiosity during the formative years of childhood, has a pronounced effect on women's 'taste for children' that later on translates into the number of her offspring. In Spain, the two parents have major opposite effects on women. Most striking is the negative effect of the mother's intensity of church attendance on her daughter's fertility: Women who were raised by an intensively practicing mother have on average one child less that their counterparts who were raised by a less religious mother. On the other hand, an intensively practicing father encourages the daughter to have more children (by about 0.8, on average). The Italian sample confirms the statistically significant negative effect of the mother's religiosity. The father's religious conduct has apparently no effect on Italian women's birth-rates. Current religiosity seems to be irrelevant, both in Spain and in Italy. It follows that religiosity and fertility are interrelated but the mechanism is probably different from the simplistic causality that is suggested in the literature.

2014

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Population Research and Policy Review, 2009

The role of religion in explaining fertility differences is often overlooked in demographic studies, particularly in Western Europe, where there has been a substantial decline in institutional forms of religious adherence. The current study explores the changing relationships between religion and childbearing in Britain, France and the Netherlands. Using data from the Generations and Gender Programme and the British Household Panel Survey, religious differences in completed fertility and the transition to first birth are explored across cohorts of women. In addition, a longitudinal analysis is employed to examine the influence of religion on subsequent childbearing. Although the secularization paradigm assumes that the influence of religion on individual behavior will diminish over time, it is found that religious affiliation and practice continue to be important determinants of fertility and family formation patterns. However, there is some variation in the relationship between religion and fertility across countries; while in France and the Netherlands fertility gaps by religiosity are either consistent or increasing, in Bri-tain, this gap appears to have narrowed over time. These findings suggest that fertility differences by religion also depend on the particular social context of religious institutions in each country.

Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2014

European Journal of Population / Revue européenne de Démographie, 2008

Working papers of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research receive only limited review. Views or opinions expressed in working papers are attributable to the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute.

2012

Fertility rates are far below replacement in Southern Europe, averaging 1.4 lifetime children per woman. The unprecedented combination of low fertility and low female labor force participation challenges conventional theories of economic demography. The usual suspects, increased education and reduced child mortality cannot explain why fertility declined faster in Southern Europe than in did in Northern Europe since the 1960s. We provide evidence that a decline in Catholic religiosity since the 1960s has been a major cause of subsequent fertility decline in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland -a decline of over a child per woman since the mid 1970s. In order to investigate the fertility effects of change in social services (both tangible and psychic) provided by Catholic communities, we merge data on fertility and economic variables with indicators of religiosity and social service provision in Catholic communities. The cross-national nature of the data allow us to distinguish this effect from a pan-European change in fertility norms. Moreover, our results imply that Catholic fertility decline was not primarily caused by religiously-induced change in preferences for children. Instead, institutional decline and social effects appear to be much more important, such as the loss of many child-friendly social services traditionally provided by Catholic communities, including schools, hospitals, day care, and social clubs. Reduced services were, in turn, linked to the large attrition of nuns and priests that followed the major reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s.