More education = less religion?

Freakonomics reports on a new study from Canada:


According to a new working paper (abstract; PDF) by Daniel M. Hungerman, an economist at Notre Dame who studies religion, the answer is yes. At least in his Canadian data set:
For over a century, social scientists have debated how educational attainment impacts religious belief. In this paper, I use Canadian compulsory schooling laws to identify the relationship between completed schooling and later religiosity. I find that higher levels of education lead to lower levels of religious participation later in life. An additional year of education leads to a 4-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that an individual identifies with any religious tradition; the estimates suggest that increases in schooling can explain most of the large rise in non-affiliation in Canada in recent decades.

Posted by Ann Fontaine on April 26, 2011 2:19 PM | |
Comments (3)

Then there's all of us believers who went to seminary (or beyond) messing up the curve! ;-/

JC Fisher

Posted by tgflux [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 26, 2011 2:57 PM

Maybe it suggests why fundamentalists are anti-intellectual.

Posted by Josh Thomas [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 26, 2011 3:12 PM

We looked at this at Friends of Jake a couple of years ago, using data from a Pew Forum study on the US population.

That data showed some striking differences in the education levels of different faiths. Thus, saying "religious" is too broad a term. There are many faith groups with high levels of education.

For example, Episcopalians have a very high fraction of college or post-graduate levels of education, with over than 50% falling into one of those two categories.

Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are much lower, being around 25% and 20%, respectively.

In contrast Jews and Hindus have even higher levels of educational attainment than Episcopalians. And people who describe themselves as having no faith were also around 25%.

I would be careful about extrapolating too much from Canada to the US, as Canada is far more European in its attitudes towards religion than the heavily religious US.

--Susan Forsburg

Posted by IT [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 26, 2011 5:28 PM

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