Religious Education

We study whether compulsory religious education in schools affects students’ religiosity as adults. We exploit the staggered termination of compulsory religious education across German states in models with state and cohort fixed effects. Using three different datasets, we find that a reform abolishing compulsory religious education significantly reduced the religiosity of affected students in adulthood. It also reduced the religious actions of personal prayer, church-going, and church membership. Beyond religious attitudes, and consistent with a shift towards worldly norms and economic activities, the reform led to higher labor-market participation and earnings. By contrast, the reform did not affect ethical and political values or non-religious school outcomes.

Press release on our research results:

Ethics Education Affects Religiosity, Gender Roles, and the Labor Market. ifo Institute, 11.1.2022

An article about our research results: 

Ending religion lessons in schools leads to overall decline in belief but not morals. Article in The Guardian, 16.1.2022

Podcast: 

Do Schools Change our Religious Attitudes? (with B. Arold and L. Zierow, interviewed by T. Phillips). VoxTalks Economics Podcast S5 Ep12, 18.3.2022

Non-technical contribution:

Religious Education in School Affects Students’ Lives in the Long Run (with B. Arold and L. Zierow). VoxEU.org, 3.3.2022

Here you can learn more about my research on this topic.

The academic paper on the topic is: 

Can Schools Change Religious Attitudes? Evidence from German State Reforms of Compulsory Religious Education (with B. Arold and L. Zierow). Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming [X Bluesky LinkedIn tweet1]

Additional material is available in German.