Title:	The Impact of Religiosity on Fertility
Authors:	Sandra Hubert
Keywords:	Fertility
Issue Date:	2015
Publisher:	Springer
Description:	Academic interest in religion has re-escalated during recent years. The topic has again taken a front seat on the European agenda. On the one hand this is associated with immigration processes creating multi-religious societies. Immigrants are not longer willing to hide their religiosity and request their own places of prayer where they can express their religiosity. On the other hand, it is due to events and conflicts for which religion is held responsible. A third explanation are religious minorities whose higher fertility and – from a secular perspective – partly deviant behavior make them highly visible. For some decades research on religion and religiosity almost ceased, which was also due to the “belief” in the victory of secularization over religion and religiosity. This premature conclusion had to be revised, also with respect to demographic behavior. Religiosity is a major cultural trait that shapes values. In the past however, fertility research in Europe generally focused on economic factors. Much less attention was paid to values-based variables. It seems worthwhile to neither neglect the first nor the latter but to combine economic and cultural factors to explain fertility. Furthermore, surrounding events, developments, and factors have to be taken into account. This dissertation investigates the impact of religiosity of both women and men on completed fertility in comparative perspective. It is assumed that religious individuals do not only desire more children and have more positive attitudes towards family and children, but also that they realize a higher fertility. Furthermore, it is supposed that the effect can be demonstrated independently of the institutional context and policymaking, social norms, state-church-relations, and the national degree of religious vitality which is associated with the denominational cultural tradition. These factors, that vary across countries, build the frame for fertility decisions but also react to changes in individual behavior. Furthermore, a variety of individual characteristics and resources are associated with fertility decisions and fertility behavior. The most important traits are labor supply and educational achievement as well as their related domains.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/53770
ISBN:	978-3-658-07008-3
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

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