Religious/spiritual connection and subjective wellbeing around the world: A cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative samples from 121 countries

Although many theistic and non-theistic faith traditions emphasize a person’s relatedness with the sacred as a key ingredient in their religious/spiritual life, the experience of religious/spiritual connection has yet to be explored in geographically and culturally diverse populations around the world. In this study, we leveraged nationally representative cross-sectional data from 121 countries (N = 125,843) in the 2021 Gallup World Poll to (1) describe the distribution of people’s experienced religious/spiritual connection and (2) examine associations of religious/spiritual connection with subjective wellbeing both by geographic location and religious affiliation. While a majority of individuals globally reported “often/always” feeling connected to a religion or form of spirituality, the distribution varied to some extent based on geographic location (regionally and by country) and religious affiliation (globally and by region). Adjusting for relevant covariates, there was a small positive association between religious/spiritual connection and subjective wellbeing globally. This finding replicated in many (but not all) geographic locations (regionally and by country) and religious affiliations (globally and by region). Against the backdrop of dynamic changes in religious/spiritual life in many parts of the world, our findings help to enrich the existing body of global research on the role of religion and spirituality in subjective wellbeing.