Religion and Marriage Attitudes across Europe: Examining the Role of the Religious Context

Aart C. Liefbroer, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)
Arieke J. Rijken, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR)

It is well-known that people with a strong religious involvement more strongly adhere to marriage and are more critical about cohabitation and divorce than people who show no or only a weak level of religious involvement. It is unclear, however, whether the strength of the association between religious involvement and marriage attitudes depends on the religious context. To fill this gap, we examined whether the strength of this association depends on the average level of religious involvement at the regional level. We formulated four competing hypotheses about the way in which the religious context shapes this association. Data from the third wave of the European Social Survey were used to answer this question. Our results show support for one of these four hypotheses, viz. the internal secularisation hypothesis. The lower the average level of religiosity in a region is, the weaker the effect of individual religiosity turns out to be.