Religiosity in the European Union: Results from the 5th wave of the European Values Study

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Patrick Heiser

Religiosity in the European Union

Results from the 5

^th

wave of the European Values Study

Working Paper

Fakultät für

Kultur- und

Sozialwissen-

schaften

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Religiosity in the European Union

Results from the 5

^th

wave of the European Values Study

A working paper by Dr Patrick Heiser

FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany patrick.heiser@fernuni-hagen.de August 2020 / 3^rd pre-release

Content

Aim of this working paper ... 2

The European Values Study ... 3

Belonging to religious denomination ... 4

Left religious denomination ... 5

Attending religious services ... 6

Praying ... 7

Religious person ... 8

Importance of religion ... 9

Importance of God ... 10

Believing ... 11

Beliefs ... 12

Learning religious faith ... 13

Confidence in church ... 14

Religiousness ... 15

Developments ... 16

Belonging to religious denomination, 1990-2017 ... 16

Attending religious services, 1990-2017 ... 17

Praying, 1999-2017 ... 18

Religious person, 1990-2017 ... 19

Bibliography ... 20

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Aim of this working paper

This paper contains data from the fifth wave of the European Values Study (EVS, 2020) concerning religiosity in the European Union. These data were collected between September 2017 and December 2019. The aim of this paper is to present central results and calculate key indices of religiosity descriptively, e.g. a typology of religiousness. Therefore, this paper merely visualises these results and indices in the form of charts, but does not undertake any interpretations or conclusions. These would require deeper analysis – especially with regard to possible correlations within the data – which will take further research.

Since the release of the final dataset has been postponed to autumn 2020, the third pre-release of the European Values Study’s fifth wave is analysed here, which was published in May 2020. It contains data about 19 member states of the European Union with a total of 32,043 participants.

Analysed member states and number of participants

Own Visualisation. Data: EVS (2020)

Bulgaria 1,566 Austria 1,651

Croatia 1,493 Czechia 1,829 Denmark 3,369

Estonia 1,304 Finland 1,220

France 1,880

Germany 2,170

Hungary 1,519

Italy 2,282

Lithuania 1,453

Netherlands 2,409 Poland 1,358

Romania 1,616 Slovakia 1,436

Slovenia 1,080

Spain 1,210

Sweden 1,198

Belgium

Greece Ireland

Latvia

Luxembourg

Malta Portugal

Cyprus

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Note that not all todays member states of the European Union were included in the EVS’s single waves. This should be considered when analysing developments – as in the second section of this paper.

1^st wave (1981) 2^nd wave (1990) 3^rd wave (1999) 4^th wave (2008) 5^th wave (2017)¹

Austria    

Belgium    

Bulgaria    

Croatia   

Cyprus 

Czechia    

Denmark     

Estonia    

Finland    

France     

Germany *    

Greece  

Hungary    

Ireland    

Italy     

Latvia   

Lithuania    

Luxembourg  

Malta    

Netherlands     

Poland    

Portugal   

Romania    

Slovakia    

Slovenia    

Spain     

Sweden     

* In 1981 only Western Germany.

The European Values Study

²

The European Values Study (EVS) is a large-scale, cross-national, and longitudinal survey research program on basic human values. It provides insights into the ideas, beliefs, preferences, attitudes, values, and opin- ions of citizens all over Europe. It is a unique research project on how Europeans think about life, family, work, religion, politics, and society.

The EVS started in 1981 when a thousand citizens in the European member states of that time were interviewed using standardized questionnaires. Every nine years, the survey is repeated in a variable number of countries. The fourth wave in 2008 covers no less than 47 European countries/regions, from Iceland to Georgia and from Portugal to Norway. In total, about 70,000 people in Europe are interviewed.

The raw EVS data are available at: https://dbk.gesis.org/dbksearch/GDESC2.asp?no=0009&DB=E.

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Belonging to religious denomination

Frequency of people who currently belong to a religious denomination On average, 64.9% of adult EU citizens belong to a religious denomination.

Own calculation and visualisation. Data: EVS (2020).

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Estonia Czechia Netherlands France Hungary Sweden Germany Spain Slovenia Slovakia Finland Austria Bulgaria Italy Denmark Croatia Lithuania Poland Romania

Roman catholic Protestant Free church Jew Muslim Hindu Buddhist Orthodox other 96.1%

91.7%

87.6%

82.1%

81.8%

79.6%

75.1%

73.6%

73.3%

71.2%

64.8%

62.9%

62.3%

61.6%

45.0%

42.0%

38.0%

24.4%

19.4%

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Left religious denomination

Frequency of people who formerly belonged to a religious denomination but left it meanwhile On average, 11.7% of adult EU citizens left the religious denomination they formerly belonged to.

0.6%

1.2%

1.9%

3.0%

3.8%

5.5%

6.6%

6.9%

9.4%

10.3%

11.9%

19.3%

19.8%

20.3%

22.1%

25.4%

26.6%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Romania Bulgaria Lithuania Croatia Estonia Slovakia Poland Hungary Czechia Denmark Italy Slovenia Austria Spain Germany France Finland Sweden Netherlands

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Attending religious services

How often people attend religious services apart from weddings, funerals and christenings On average, 23.0% of adult EU citizens attend religious services at least once a month.

Own visualisation. Data: EVS (2020).

7.0%

13.7%

7.0%

8.7%

13.8%

11.1%

21.3%

22.2%

17.1%

6.4%

12.2%

41.8%

24.9%

5.8%

6.2%

10.9%

7.1%

8.7%

13.8%

6.5%

9.6%

14.3%

12.0%

8.7%

16.4%

17.4%

17.7%

10.6%

9.3%

9.9%

14.0%

12.2%

13.2%

17.7%

18.1%

25.4%

25.5%

23.0%

16.8%

14.2%

23.5%

23.7%

41.7%

38.2%

16.8%

37.0%

7.0%

10.0%

7.4%

12.6%

10.4%

8.2%

6.1%

14.9%

6.3%

17.5%

6.2%

7.8%

7.2%

7.0%

6.9%

9.9%

9.2%

11.2%

16.2%

12.4%

12.9%

17.0%

16.9%

9.1%

11.8%

24.9%

17.6%

6.1%

13.5%

12.9%

10.1%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

France Czechia Netherlands Estonia Sweden Spain Germany Hungary Denmark Slovenia Austria Finland Slovakia Italy Croatia Bulgaria Lithuania Poland Romania

more than once a week once a week once a month only on specific holydays once a year less often

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Praying

How often people pray outside of religious services

On average, 33.2% of adult EU citizens pray at least once a week outside of religious services.

9.8%

9.7%

9.8%

14.2%

17.8%

7.1%

13.3%

15.4%

18.4%

17.9%

14.1%

16.8%

14.5%

23.1%

16.2%

27.3%

39.1%

42.2%

54.0%

8.2%

9.6%

7.1%

10.5%

13.1%

9.1%

14.2%

8.5%

11.5%

19.2%

6.3%

6.7%

9.4%

8.4%

7.3%

7.7%

8.4%

8.7%

14.2%

7.9%

6.2%

6.4%

8.9%

10.3%

6.0%

8.4%

7.3%

8.0%

7.1%

6.5%

8.4%

6.8%

9.3%

6.3%

6.8%

7.5%

9.9%

11.2%

15.3%

12.7%

6.2%

9.5%

9.3%

10.9%

16.2%

8.9%

9.6%

21.1%

17.2%

16.3%

15.1%

17.9%

14.3%

23.3%

8.8%

15.9%

19.4%

12.3%

10.7%

7.2%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Czechia Estonia Sweden France Netherlands Denmark Slovenia Germany Spain Hungary Austria Finland Lithuania Slovakia Bulgaria Italy Croatia Poland Romania

every day more than once a week once a week at least once a month several times a year less often

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Religious person

Frequency of people who describe themselves as…

On average, 59.0% of adult EU citizens describe themselves as a religious person.

27.4%

35.5%

35.8%

41.5%

43.6%

48.7%

51.0%

53.5%

54.4%

54.9%

60.7%

65.1%

68.8%

72.0%

77.7%

83.9%

84.9%

85.2%

85.9%

52.9%

56.2%

50.6%

35.3%

45.9%

36.6%

40.0%

34.5%

34.2%

38.1%

33.5%

30.8%

17.3%

22.4%

15.8%

9.8%

12.9%

14.0%

10.7%

19.7%

8.3%

13.6%

23.2%

10.5%

14.7%

8.9%

12.0%

11.4%

7.0%

13.8%

6.5%

6.3%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Sweden Estonia Czechia France Netherlands Spain Finland Germany Denmark Hungary Austria Bulgaria Slovenia Slovakia Italy Croatia Lithuania Romania Poland

a religious person not a religious person a convinced atheist

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Importance of religion

How important religion is for people

On Average, for 43.2% of adult EU citizens religion is at least quite important in their life.

5.8%

6.6%

8.7%

9.5%

11.2%

11.5%

12.6%

12.7%

12.9%

14.0%

14.4%

16.3%

17.2%

21.1%

22.5%

24.6%

25.0%

37.7%

49.0%

13.7%

16.7%

12.6%

18.5%

20.9%

25.1%

34.2%

23.8%

17.6%

29.4%

23.0%

29.3%

20.9%

43.2%

37.8%

28.8%

40.6%

41.2%

33.2%

46.1%

39.0%

27.9%

42.5%

41.4%

38.4%

37.0%

35.8%

35.7%

32.9%

26.3%

33.9%

31.2%

21.7%

27.0%

28.1%

25.0%

14.0%

11.8%

34.5%

37.6%

50.8%

29.5%

26.5%

25.0%

16.2%

27.7%

33.8%

23.7%

36.3%

20.5%

30.7%

14.0%

12.6%

18.4%

9.4%

7.1%

6.0%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Denmark Estonia Czechia Sweden Finland Slovenia Lithuania Germany Netherlands Austria France Hungary Spain Croatia Bulgaria Slovakia Italy Poland Romania

very important quite important not important not at all important

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Importance of God

How important God is for people on a scale from 1 (not at all important) to 10 (very important) On average, EU citizens numeralise the importance of God in their life with 5,3.

3.48 3.50

3.81 4.06

4.10 4.42

4.65 4.80

5.00 5.41

5.48 5.61

6.09 6.19

6.28 6.72

7.13 7.66

8.75

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Sweden Denmark Czechia Estonia Netherlands France Finland Germany Slovenia Spain Austria Hungary Slovakia Bulgaria Lithuania Italy Croatia Poland Romania

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Believing

Frequency of people who believe in…

On average, 65.2% of adult EU citizens believe in God.

36.1%

38.4%

43.7%

45.7%

50.8%

53.7%

56.7%

60.9%

61.4%

68.0%

71.1%

72.8%

73.7%

79.4%

84.4%

84.8%

85.3%

93.4%

97.2%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Sweden Czechia Netherlands Estonia Denmark France Finland Slovenia Germany Spain Hungary Slovakia Austria Bulgaria Italy Lithuania Croatia Poland Romania

God life after death hell heaven re-incarnation

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Beliefs

Statements that come closest to people’s beliefs

On average, 27.1% of adult EU citizens believe that there is a personal God.

6.9%

9.5%

13.5%

13.6%

18.3%

20.2%

20.7%

21.7%

28.3%

30.2%

32.9%

33.4%

33.7%

36.8%

41.8%

42.5%

43.8%

65.0%

38.7%

43.0%

53.3%

37.2%

34.7%

51.7%

32.3%

41.5%

45.8%

36.0%

48.2%

51.5%

30.4%

36.0%

29.5%

41.2%

39.4%

27.1%

17.8%

25.8%

20.0%

16.5%

21.8%

21.9%

15.7%

24.6%

12.8%

11.4%

15.8%

12.4%

13.5%

18.0%

16.1%

18.3%

8.3%

11.0%

17.5%

11.6%

28.6%

27.5%

16.7%

27.3%

25.0%

12.4%

22.5%

24.0%

14.5%

18.0%

9.2%

18.2%

14.3%

15.4%

8.7%

7.1%

11.6%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Czechia Sweden Estonia Denmark Netherlands Slovenia France Germany Austria Finland Italy Romania Hungary Slovakia Spain Bulgaria Croatia Lithuania Poland

There is a personal God

There is some sort of spirit or life force I don't know what to think

I don't really think here is any sort of spirit, God or life force

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Learning religious faith

Frequency of people for whom religious faith is one of the five most important qualities to learn at home On average, for 14.7% of adult EU citizens religious faith is one of the five most important qualities to learn children at home.

3.6%

4.5%

4.6%

7.3%

8.9%

9.3%

10.0%

10.9%

12.3%

13.8%

14.3%

15.2%

18.7%

18.8%

19.1%

31.7%

32.9%

45.9%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

Estonia Denmark Sweden Finland France Netherlands Slovenia Germany Czechia Austria Lithuania Hungary Spain Italy Bulgaria Slovakia Croatia Poland Romania

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Confidence in church

How much confidence people have in the church

On average, 44.3% of adult EU citizens have confidence in the church at least quite a lot.

6.1%

6.5%

7.1%

8.9%

9.3%

9.7%

9.8%

9.9%

10.0%

13.4%

15.2%

15.8%

16.3%

19.5%

20.7%

42.4%

26.7%

12.4%

17.0%

16.2%

41.4%

32.2%

27.7%

46.2%

26.4%

28.2%

51.1%

32.5%

19.5%

35.6%

25.7%

37.1%

36.9%

54.8%

27.9%

46.3%

33.0%

42.7%

43.2%

38.2%

30.3%

37.2%

33.9%

45.8%

38.9%

30.5%

32.8%

31.0%

29.0%

34.0%

30.4%

32.1%

19.8%

21.9%

22.7%

49.3%

34.2%

34.1%

13.3%

28.5%

25.8%

10.3%

17.9%

23.1%

8.5%

24.6%

36.1%

20.2%

24.5%

16.2%

11.5%

7.9%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Germany Czechia Netherlands Slovenia Sweden France Austria Finland Bulgaria Croatia Denmark Estonia Spain Slovakia Hungary Italy Poland Lithuania Romania

a great deal quite a lot not very much none at all

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Religiousness

People’s religiousness was calculated from the data presented above. The operationalisation was carried out multidimensionally on the basis of three dimensions (Glock, 1962; Molteni & Biolcati, 2018; Pearce et al., 2013). The cognitive dimension of religiosity is reflected through the belief in God, the belief in a life after death and the belief in a personal God or supernatural force. The affective dimension of religiosity captures whether a person describes himself/herself as a religious person, the stated importance of God and that of religion. The behavioural dimension of religiosity is addressed by the frequency of attending religious services, the frequency of praying and the importance of religious faith for learning children at home. From these nine variables an index was calculated, which can take four types of formations: non- religious, moderately non-religious, moderately religious and very religious (Bechert, 2018).

56.9%

52.3%

49.1%

45.7%

44.1%

41.8%

36.2%

35.6%

31.6%

30.2%

28.9%

26.5%

25.2%

18.5%

16.7%

16.5%

13.7%

7.6%

20.2%

25.2%

19.6%

29.6%

24.7%

31.3%

23.4%

26.8%

23.8%

23.6%

28.6%

17.0%

23.4%

25.1%

18.5%

15.9%

16.9%

10.4%

6.6%

14.4%

15.8%

17.6%

18.5%

18.9%

22.5%

26.9%

25.9%

26.1%

28.4%

29.4%

28.0%

34.4%

37.4%

41.5%

38.2%

34.6%

30.7%

37.7%

8.6%

6.6%

13.6%

6.2%

12.3%

13.5%

11.7%

18.4%

17.8%

13.1%

28.5%

17.1%

19.0%

23.2%

29.3%

34.8%

51.3%

53.3%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Czechia Sweden Netherlands Estonia France Denmark Germany Finland Spain Hungary Slovenia Slovakia Austria Bulgaria Lithuania Italy Croatia Poland Romania

non-religious moderately non-religious moderately religious very religious

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Developments

Belonging to religious denomination, 1990-2017 Frequency of people who belong to a religious denomination

The percentage of respondents who belong to a religious denomination decreased from 71.1% in 1990 to 64.9% in 2017.

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus

Czechia Denmark

Estonia Finland

France Germany Greece

Hungary Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg Malta

Netherlands Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden

Average

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

(18)

Attending religious services, 1990-2017

Frequency of people who attend religious services at least once a month

The percentage of respondents who attend religious services at least once a month decreased from 34.6%

in 1990 to 23.0% in 2017.

Austria

Belgium Bulgaria

Croatia Cyprus

Czechia Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece

Hungary Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg Malta

Netherlands Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia

Slovenia Spain

Sweden Average

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1990 1999 2008 2017

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Praying, 1999-2017

Frequency of people who pray at least once a week

The percentage of respondents who pray at least once a week outside of religious services decreased from 43.9% in 1999 to 33.2% in 2017.

Austria

Belgium

Czechia Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece

Hungary Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg Malta

Netherlands Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia

Slovenia Spain

Sweden Average

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1999 2008 2017

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Religious person, 1990-2017

Frequency of people who describe themselves as a religious person

The percentage of respondents who describe themselves as a religious person decreased from 63.3% in 1990 to 59.0% in 2017.

Austria Belgium

Czechia Denmark

Estonia Finland

France Germany Greece

Hungary Ireland

Italy Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg Malta

Netherlands Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia Slovenia

Spain

Sweden Average

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1990 1999 2008 2017

(21)

Bibliography

Bechert, I. (2018). Comparing religiosity cross-nationally. About invariance and the role of denomination.

Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik, 2(1), 135–157.

EVS. (2011a). European Values Study 1990: Integrated Dataset (EVS 1990). GESIS Data Archive.

https://doi.org/10.4232/1.10790

EVS. (2011b). European Values Study 1999: Integrated Dataset (EVS 1999). GESIS Data Archive.

https://doi.org/10.4232/1.10789

EVS. (2016). European Values Study 2008: Integrated Dataset (EVS 2008). GESIS Data Archive.

https://doi.org/10.4232/1.12458

EVS. (2020). European Values Study 2017: Integrated Dataset (EVS 2017). GESIS Data Archive.

https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13511

Glock, C. Y. (1962). On the study of religious commitment. Religious Education. The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 57(4), 98–110.

Molteni, F., & Biolcati, F. (2018). Shifts in religiosity across cohorts in Europe: A multilevel and multidimen- sional analysis based on the European Values Study. Social Compass, 65(3), 413–432.

Pearce, L. D., Halliday Hardie, J., & Foster, E. M. (2013). A person-centered examination of adolescent religiosity using latent class analysis. Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, 52(1), 57–79.