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 attendanceMany missing wavesA lot of change in individual’s attendance frequency

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

Context of secularisation:trends in attendance

Decline in regular attendance

Satisfaction by religious attendance 1999-2012

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 2000-2012

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 2000-2012

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):

2000-20062001-20072002-20082003-20092006-2012

No attendance data collected in 2010 and 2011 (Subsequent collection of religious data every 3 years, 2015…)

1st year Last year1 Always regular Regular Regular2 Always occasional Occasional Occasional3 Always rare Rare Rare4 Stopped regular Regular Occasional/rare5 Occasional>rare Occasional Rare6 Rare>occasional Rare Occasional7 Started regular Rare/occasional Regular

Typology of attenders

Average satisfaction:‘continuous’ attenders & those who stopped

Those who drop out are already less satisfied at year 1

Average satisfactionNon-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 moreTeens, 20s, 30s, 50s, 60s most likely to become sadder if attend lessAnomalies: 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!

drmarionb@gmail.com