The Social Impact

I have managed to find an interesting article from USA Today written by Noelle Knox on August 11, 2005. Published in the article was this table:

One of the most striking consequences of the decline of religiosity in Europe is the correlating decline in birth rate. This implies an increased use of artificial birth control, a deed looked down upon by the Roman Catholic Church. An increased use of birth control doesn't appear detrimental to society in itself, however, this article argues that the populations of several European countries have decreased significantly to cause a potential labor shortage, thus, hurting the economies of these nations.

In addition, with the gradual disappearance of religion, public opinion on issues such as divorce, abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research have become more liberal in Europe. However, just the opposite has occurred in the "more religious" United States, where 11 voted in 2004 to amend their Constitutions banning gay marriage.

Whether these changes are positive or negative is up for debate right now in Europe.

The Correlation

Recently, I thoroughly read two reports on the consequences of state religion.

The first, titled "Religious Freedom and the Unintended Consequences of State Religion" was written by Carl R. Gwin and Charles M. North and can be found through query at JSTOR (membership required). The authors, who are of the Department of Economics at Baylor University, test the accuracy of past research, ranging from 1975 to 1998, that as government restrictions on religion decrease, religiosity (here defined as the percentage of a population that attends religious services weekly) increases. They use a cross-section of 59 countries; however, the article lacks the names of each country surveyed. The authors are credible because they match most previous research and explain all inconsistencies, such as contrasting results of the effects of an official state religion on religiosity being attributed to defining “state religion” differently. Most notably, the study finds that constitutional protection of religious liberty increases religiosity by 1.2% every decade; however, an established state religion reduces religiosity 14.6-16.7%, meaning that the net effect of religiosity is negative and decreases. The article raises concern for reader’s because it proves that religious power in the wrong hands can lead to joint church and state, which will lead the religion to its own self-destruction.

The second report, titled "State Regulation of Religion and Muslim Religious Vitality in the Industrialized West", was written by Mark Chaves, Peter J. Schraeder, and Mario Sprindys. It, too, can be accessed at JSTOR. This study confirms that an increase in government regulation of Islam in predominantly Christian nations decreases its religiosity, supporting the Gwin theory cited below and using similar past research However, unlike the Gwin study where religiosity is defined as the percent of a population that attends religious services weekly, Islamic religiosity is defined as the rate that Muslims make their pilgrimage to Mecca. The study’s hypothesis (called the supply-side) relates refers to religion like economics: decreased religious regulation by the government opens up a free market with increased competition that forces religious leaders to be less indolent. The initial results don’t support the hypothesis because of the effect of social status, but once that is removed from the equation, the hypothesis proves true. In countries like the Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.S., where the government steps back from religious regulation, rates of pilgrimages to Mecca are very high, and are lower in countries with more religious regulation.