Secularization
Why did substantial parts of the population in Europe abandon the institutionalized churches at the turn to the 20th century? For Germany, we document a substantial decline in church attendance during this time using unique data of the Sacrament Statistics of the Protestant regional churches on participation in Holy Communion. Two classic theories refer to increased education and increased economic prosperity of the population as possible causes of secularization.
Using panel data on German cities between 1890 and 1930, our research shows that an important cause of the decline in church attendance and thus in the importance of the church in everyday social life was the population's increased attendance of advanced schools. We show that the educational boost preceded the decline in church attendance, and not vice versa. In this respect, the expansion of education of Protestantism may have laid the foundation for the decline of churchliness in its own ranks.
While previous analyses questioned the view advanced by David Hume, Sigmund Freud, and others that education and science would lead to a decline in religion, our results are in line with this thesis. The relationship between educational expansion and decline in church attendance is as strong for classical humanist grammar schools as it is for the newly emerging upper secondary schools whose curriculum focused strongly on natural sciences. In this sense, general critical thinking (which may undermine adherence to the institutionalized church) seems to have been a more important mechanism for the context than specific scientific knowledge of facts of natural sciences.
The effect of education on secularization contrasts with the fact that in another study, we do not find a causal effect of rising income on the decline in church attendance. The missing effect of improved material conditions suggests that church services were not just in demand to provide religious consolation. In this sense, religion did probably not function as the “opium of the people” propagated by Karl Marx which was needed only to alleviate the misery of poor economic circumstances.
Non-technical contributions:
Education and Socio-Economic Development during the Industrialization (with S.O. Becker). In: C. Diebolt, M. Haupert (eds.), Handbook of Cliometrics, 2nd ed., Berlin: Springer, 2019
How Luther’s Quest for Education Changed German Economic History: 9+5 Theses on the Effects of the Protestant Reformation (with S.O. Becker). In: J.-P. Carvalho, S. Iyer, J. Rubin (eds.), Advances in the Economics of Religion, International Economic Association Series, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 215-227, 2019
Here you can learn more about my research on this topic.
Two important academic papers on the topic is:
Not the Opium of the People: Income and Secularization in a Panel of Prussian Counties (with S.O. Becker). American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 103 (3): 539-544, 2013
Education and Religious Participation: City-Level Evidence from Germany’s Secularization Period 1890-1930 (with S.O. Becker and M. Nagler). Journal of Economic Growth 22 (3): 273-311, 2017