Examining The Relationship Between Age And Religiosity Through Cohort And Period Effect

Introduction

A vast number of researchers who focus on the degree of the age effect on religiosity use one of three theoretical frameworks the effect of ageing on religiosity, life course changes and the variations of religiosity in regard to age is associated with period effects (Argue et al. 1999). The present study is an attempt to understand the impact of ageing and the period on religiosity by presenting some studies from the literature examining these relationships.

Literature review

Although there has been an effort to understand the relationship between age and religiosity, there is still no clear answer on the nature of this relationship. For example, some studies such as Argyle and Beit Hallahmi (1975) point out that there is a significant decrease in religious activity in the middle ages. Other studies claim that there is a stable trend in religious affiliation during adolescent followed by a rapid increase in religiosity after the age of thirties (Regnerus and Uecker, 2006). One more strand in the literature shows that there is continues deterioration in religiosity with the increase of age.

This study is an examination of the most influential research related to this field. The majority of the studies reported in the essay were conducted in Europe and the USA. Noticeably, almost similar results were reached in these studies supporting the assumption that older adults tend to be more religious than younger ones, concluding that religion is vital for older people for different reasons. Tornstam (1997), Willmott (2004) and King and Furrow (2004), document that there is a significant proportion (48%) of Americans elderly, aged 65 and more, have reported that they are churchgoers on a daily basis. However, among the younger generation, aged 18-27, this percentage plunges to 27 % indicating that younger people have less frequency of going to churches on a daily basis compared to the elderly. Sociologists have attempted to investigate the potential factors that would affect the differences of religiosity between older and younger people in any given society. For instance, religion and religious practices are essential elements for older people as they need meaning of one s life and for psychological support. If could be argued, religious affiliation and spirituality become stronger at older age when religion helps to maintain security and reduce fears among this age group. Vail et al. (2010) have found that interaction between religion and age is critical to the study of religion. The latter concluded that the positive effect of age on religiosity becomes stronger at a higher level of age. Vail et al., explain this relationship by proposing that ageing implies people s fears of death and insecurity during the final stage of human development. Thus religious beliefs and practices are significantly essential to reassure those concerns among the elderly.

Similarly, G veli and Platt (2011) investigate the regular religious attendance for Muslims in two secular countries the UK and Netherlands. By adapting the secularisation theory in their research, the authors found that Muslims coming to secular countries tend to become secular in their values and norms which they inherited from their country of origin. Another finding of this study is that age is associated with high frequency of attending religious meeting among Muslims in Netherlands and UK. However, they have found no quadratic relationship between age and attendance in the Netherlands indicating that there is no evidence that the positive effect of age on participation would be higher when individuals become older. When comparing involvement of Muslims from a different age group in the Netherlands, it appears that because of the assimilation process for the second-generation immigrants, young Muslims attended less religious meetings compared to older Muslims. This study concludes that that the mechanisms of religiosity differ for migrants and second generation older Dutch Muslims are less religious than older UK Muslim.

Another crucial sociological work, by Voas and Crockett (2005) which uses data from the British Social Attitudes surveys, propose their thesis of Religion in Britain: Neither believing nor belonging . They suggest that the numbers of people who believe are higher than those who attend religious meeting in Britain. The authors compare individuals from different age groups during the 1990s and they have found that older people are more religious than younger ones in this sample. However, when comparing individuals within the same age group, the authors have found that people in 1999 2000 were less religious than those at the same age in 1991 1992. In other words, the differences between generations contribute to the drops of religion. The researchers, however, do not reach a conclusion on the reason why religiosity increases by ageing. They provide two potential effects, the effect of age on religiosity is small and the impact of the period that acts upon individuals to reduce religiosity.

Another study with more conclusive results is conducted by Aleksynska and Chiswick in 2013. They examine the differences of religious behaviour among two groups, native born and immigrants in European countries. Using the European Social Survey, the authors measure the religious behaviour by using self-reported religiosity, the frequency of praying and church attending. They propose that immigrants are more religious than native-born individuals. Age, income, education attainment are important factors which influence religiosity among immigrants and the native-born. The authors have found that religiosity increases by age and decreases with the high level of education. A similar finding is reached when Stolzenberg et al. 1995 investigate the effect of age on religious participation in the USA, by using data from National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. They consider different aspects explain the effect of age on religious participation. First, there is an indirect effect between age and religious involvement, for example, older people are more likely to have children compared to younger, consequently, having children have found to increase the possibility of participating in religious activity. Second, there is an interactive relationship between age and marital status and parenthood. The authors propose that the effect of having children on parent s religiosity depends on the age of children and parents. Based on this study, parents religious participation rises with age as parents are more likely to pray and engage in religious activities when they grow older.

While age is positively associated with religiosity in the proposed literature, there is another important aspect to religiosity which is the effect of period. Hayward and Krause (2015) examine a primary research question of Do elderly people become more religious because of [..] the effect of time and period that they were born in? . This study aims to look at the influence of the period on religiosity of the American older adults at the time where religion was significantly central to the American culture. The authors conduct two measurements to test religiosity how God is important to one s life and how often the participants (aged 12-104) go to church. They performed a comparative cross-culture study that compared the level of religiosity across 80 countries. They found that the relationship between age and religiosity in religious nations is stable, i.e. there is no relationship between decrease or increase in the level of religiosity and age in those religious countries. Muslims countries, for example, are very religious therefore, the effect of period on religiosity is moderate in those countries as Muslims arguably continually practice religion throughout their lifetime.

Based on this study, it can be concluded that the effect of period on religiosity depends on the social context of the country. This result also documented in Norris and Inglehart (2004) study. They claim that religiosity is stronger among poor and insecure societies, whereas the experience of people in rich and secure societies lessens religiosity (also documented in Musick and Wilson, 2003).

Same findings are also presented by Ruiter and De Graff (2006) in their study of National Context, Religiosity, and Volunteering: Results from 53 Countries. The authors examine the effect of the national religious context on volunteering. Based on the analysis of data from 53 countries, the authors hypothesise that church members are more likely to volunteer compared to non-members. Also, the authors propose that the degree of volunteering is influenced by the devoutness of the society. European Values Study Group and World Values Survey Association are used to test these hypotheses. While this study is focused on age, it is also focused on the cohort effect as a main influence on religiosity. The relationship between age and volunteering is curvilinear indicating that the positive effect of age on the ability of volunteering becomes stronger at a high level of age. However, when taking the cohort effect into account, the positive effect of age on volunteering is partly explained. Thus, age is influenced by the cohort effect as it is documented that older birth cohorts who lived in a more religious culture are religiously more active than younger cohorts. Same results are documented in Voas and Crockett (2005) study, previously mentioned, the authors concluded that the effect of period decreases religiosity in Britain as the level of secularisation increases by time. Further, consistent results are reported in G veli and Platt (2011) study. They explore the national contexts of Muslims first countries and they found that Muslims religiosity is influenced by the degree of the developing country they came from. For example, Muslims in the Netherlands are mainly from Turkey and Morocco. Turkey is an industrial country whereas Morocco is agrarian societies. They conclude that the level of religiosity is different among those two societies Turkish attend religious meeting less that Moroccans in the Netherlands. Some studies point out the war time and economic change in Europe plays as major factors on religion change across time. For example, Requena and Stanek, (2014) propose that after the WWI the number of religious people starts to decline in the UK as an impact of the war. Although there have been extensive research studies that demonstrate that religion is declining in the 20the century, it should be noted that the secularisation process differs across European countries. While Netherlands and the UK are considered to be secular countries, secularisation is seen as new phenomenon in Spain and Portugal. Beside, after the collapse of the communist regime in Russia, religion was intensively observed. These differences between countries regarding religion emphasises that religion is influenced by the political and economic changes of the country.

In conclusion, according to the previous literature review, I suggest that there is a positive association between age and religiosity. Further, the literature discussed in this essay shows that there is also a significant effect of period on religiosity. However, there are multifactor causal processes would produce change on religion affiliations across time.

Reference list:

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