The Sacred and the Secular: An Empirical Analysis of Religious Attendance and Macroeconomic Development

This paper examines the long-term relationship between religious involvement across the 50 years and economic growth. For long many sociologists believed as the countries became modern, religion would fade away of itself, but the facts have proved otherwise. The study uses survey data and economic record data to determine that attendance at religious services tends to decline as a country's wealth rises, on a per week basis. This change isn't easy and won't happen instantly, the research indicates it's gradual over generations due to the difficulty of changing culture. This is likely due to three main factors: people have less free time and feel more economically secure, thus the need for religious support is diminished. But sometimes, the trend can reverse when there is a conflict between the religious groups. Ultimately, despite the fact that economic development results in declining regular church attendance, religion still exerts a powerful influence on attitudes to social values and trust in others. Secularization is a term used to describe the process of society moving away from religion.