Journal Article

Secularization and aging in Britain: does family formation cause greater religiosity?

Authors

Publication date

2003

Abstract

Using data from the British Election Studies and the British Household Panel Study, this research note examines how family formation factors, such as marriage and childrearing, affect church attendance in Britain. Debates in the United States have centered on how, first, apparent aging effects could be due to family formation or be evidence for cohort differences, and, second, how family formation effects are sex specific. This research note shows that sex-specific effects are also present in Britain, but more importantly that family formation alone cannot begin to account for differences between age groups in church attendance. Evidence presented here suggests that generational differences are actually responsible for both age disparities and the large declines over time in church attendance in Britain.

Published in

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Volume

42 (2):269-278

Subjects

Religion, Family Formation And Dissolution, and Childbearing: Fertility

Links

http://serlib0.essex.ac.uk/record=b1204463~S5

Notes

Albert Sloman Library Periodicals *restricted to Univ. Essex registered users*

#508592