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Secularism and Fertility Worldwide
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Description: This study hypothesizes a link between societal secularism and fertility. Using country-level data from multiple sources (N=181) and multilevel data from 55 countries in the World Values Survey (N=78,639), I document a strong negative relationship between societal secularism and both country-level fertility rates and individual-level fertility behavior. Secularism, even in small amounts, is associated with population stagnation or even decline, whereas highly religious countries have higher fertility rates that promote population growth. This country-level pattern is driven by more than aggregate lower fertility of individual nonreligious people. In fact, secularism is more closely linked to religious than nonreligious people’s fertility behavior and appears to be a function of different cultural values related to gender and reproduction in more secular societies. Beyond its importance for the religious composition of the world population, the societal-level association between secularism and fertility is relevant to key fertility theories and may help account, in part, for below-replacement fertility.
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