Religion and Fertility: A Longitudinal Register Study Examining Differences by Sex, Parity, Partner's Religion, and Religious Conversion in Finland.

Demography Fertility Finland Homogamy Religion Secularization

Journal

European journal of population = Revue europeenne de demographie
ISSN: 0168-6577
Titre abrégé: Eur J Popul
Pays: Netherlands
ID NLM: 8511777

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
19 Feb 2024
Historique:
received: 26 05 2023
accepted: 18 12 2023
medline: 19 2 2024
pubmed: 19 2 2024
entrez: 19 2 2024
Statut: epublish

Résumé

We use longitudinal data on religious affiliation in Finland to examine childbearing behavior. All analyses are based on detailed fertility information from the Finnish national register of each person's religious denomination for men and women born in 1956-1975. We identify higher fertility according to parity among members of the Evangelical Lutheran state church and other Protestant churches, and lower fertility among individuals with no religious affiliation. Most other religious groups-Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and adherents of Eastern religions-have intermediate levels of fertility. We also find that religious converts, that is, those observed with more than one religious denomination over their life course, typically are similar to the non-converts of the group they convert to, though with more distinct deviations from the Finnish population. Women show larger differences by religious affiliation than men. We find the largest differences across religions when we examine the proportion of childless men and women. Overall, differences between religious groups are rather modest, and childbearing patterns are quite similar. Our results provide, to our knowledge, the first examination of religion and fertility using national-level longitudinal data.

Identifiants

pubmed: 38372814
doi: 10.1007/s10680-023-09693-0
pii: 10.1007/s10680-023-09693-0
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Pagination

9

Subventions

Organisme : Stiftelsen för Åbo Akademi
ID : Demographic change
Organisme : Stiftelsen för Åbo Akademi
ID : ethnolinguistic identity in an intergenerational perspective: The Swedish-speaking population in Finland (DemSwed)" center of excellence
Organisme : Vetenskapsrådet
ID : 2022-02314
Organisme : Global Challanges Foundation (SE)
ID : Sustainable population in the time of climate change

Informations de copyright

© 2024. The Author(s).

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Auteurs

Martin Kolk (M)

Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 10691, Sweden. martin.kolk@sociology.su.se.
DemSwed, Åbo Akademi, Vasa, Finland. martin.kolk@sociology.su.se.
Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, Sweden. martin.kolk@sociology.su.se.

Jan Saarela (J)

DemSwed, Åbo Akademi, Vasa, Finland.

Classifications MeSH