Go Forth and Multiply The Politics of Religious Demography

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Go Forth and MultiplyThe Politics of Religious
Demography

• Eric Kaufmann and Vegard Skirbekk

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Outline

• Religion determined by demography
• Fertility
• Migration
• Cohort variation in affiliation/intensity
• Implications
• Religion and politics
• Conclusion

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fertilityaffiliation and religious intensity

• Religious individuals tend to have higher
  fertility and often see their childbearing
  patterns to be an outcome of their religion
  (Borooah 2004 McQuillan 2004)
• Total fertility rate (TFR) by affiliation in
  Austria, 2001 (Goujon 2007)Muslim 2.3,
  Catholic 1.3, Protestant 1.2, No religion 0.9
• by intensity in Larsmo/Finland 1979, Protestants
  (Finnäs 1991). Lesthadians (more conservative)
  6.5 , non-Lesthadian 1.7

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Migration Migrants fertility (if religious)
often relatively high
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cohortsAffiliation may change along cohort lines

• Many studies consider how values affect
  demography, few study how demographic dynamics
  affect values

Example Later born cohorts in Spain are more
secular (Skirbekk et al. 2008)
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projection methodology Multi-state
cohort-component projection
age
Male
Female
Male
Female
a x
A
B
A
B
a
Time t
Time t x
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projecting beliefs European identity
In Science (2006) Lutz, Kritzinger and Skirbekk
estimated and projected European identity as a
function of cohort and age
90
80
70
60
Per cent with some degree of European Identity
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Data Eurobarometer surveys for EU 15.
40
1996
2004
30
2030
20
15-19
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-49
50-54
55-59
60-64
65-69
70-74
75-79
Age
Survey question Do you see yourself as having
some degree of European identity as opposed to
only national identity?
Survey question Do you see yourself as having
some degree of European identity as opposed to
only national identity?
Survey question Do you see yourself as having
some degree of European identity as opposed to
only national identity?
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religion Austria
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1900
1911
1921
1931
1941
1951
1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
Source Statistics
Austria, Census 1900 to 2001, projections IIASA /
VID, FcnvMmedTcon
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religion Politics

• Religion and politics directly entwined through
  establishment or religious regulation (Iran)
• But even if not, religion bears on politics
  through
• Electoral cleavages
• Domestic policy (alcohol, school prayer,
  abortion, religious law)
• Foreign Policy (alliances, conflict
  sacralization, missionary unilateralism)
• Nongovernment actors (such as terrorism)
• Near-majority of civil wars and terrorism now
  involves religion (Toft 2007 Philpott 2007)

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Political Demography of Religion

• Shifts in Groups by Religious Tradition
• Civilizational (i.e. Christianity, Islam, Hindu,
  Judaic) affects IR and can form the basis of
  domestic conflicts
• Church/Sect (i.e. Lutheran, Shia, Pentecostal)
  affects domestic politics, but often has
  transnational effects
• Shifts in Groups by Religious Intensity
• Attendance, belief/theology (i.e.
  conservative/Orthodox vs. liberal/modernist
  regular v occasional attenders)

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Why Now?

• A Demographic Revolution
• Global demographic disparities globalization
  migration from religious to secular regions
• In developed world, values increasingly drive
  fertility
• Sociological Change
• Democratization makes population size important
• Secularization in West, but
• Strict churches revival of conservative Islam,
  Pentecostalism
• Net effect direct indirect conservative
  religious growth

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religion as civilization Global past and
future
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Domestic religious affiliation
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religious intensity
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Conclusion

• Changing balance of religious traditions/intensiti
  es affects domestic and international politics
• Islam will grow
• Secularism will grow in the West until 2020-50
• Conservative theologies are expanding in major
  Abrahamic faiths
• Longer term (2020-50) effects, apart from Israel
• Proximate mechanism often awareness of change,
  which can spark anxiety and conflict

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Source WVS 1999-2000. N 2796 respondents in
towns under 10,000 and 1561 respondents in cities
over 100,000. Asked in Algeria, Bangladesh,
Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Egypt.
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Religiosity and Fertility in Muslim Countries,
2000
Egypt
Bangladesh
Nigeria
Iran
Tanzania
Morocco
Uganda
Pakistan
Azerbaijan '95-97
Jordan
Indonesia
Turkey
Bosnia
Albania 2000
Albania '95-97
Algeria
Source 2000 WVS and World Bank.
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• Thank you

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Net migrants
Resident population