Religious Heterogamy and the Intergenerational Transmission of Religion: A Cross-National Analysis

Abstract

This study examines the effect of religious heterogamy on the transmission of religion from one generation to the next. Using data from 37 countries in the 2008 Religion III Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), I conduct a cross-national analysis of the relationship between parents’ religious heterogamy and their adult childrens’ religious lives. By estimating fixed effects regression models, I adjust for national-level confounders to examine patterns of association between having interreligious parents during childhood and level of adult religiosity as measured by self-rated religiousness, belief in God, and frequencies of religious attendance and prayer. The results indicate that having religiously heterogamous parents or parents with dissimilar religious attendance patterns are both associated with lower overall religiosity in respondents. Parents’ religious attendance, however, mediates the relationship when each parent has a different religion. Having one unaffiliated parent is associated with lower religiosity regardless of parents’ levels of religious attendance. The negative impact of parents’ religious heterogamy on religious inheritance is independent of national-level factors and has implications for anticipating changes in the religious landscapes of societies characterized by religious diversity and growing numbers of interreligious marriages.

Secularization among immigrants in Scandinavia: Religiosity across generations and duration of residence

“…Lower rates of religious belonging among Generation 2.5 may be a result of the fact that a couple with one native and one immigrant partner have to make a more conscious decision about national church membership and what religion, if any, to raise their child in. Furthermore, Generation 2.5 may be more likely to have been raised by interreligious parents, following the notion that religion is less likely to be transmitted in a household with religiously heterogamous parents (McPhail, 2019). Given their openness to marrying someone from a different background, the immigrant parent in such a couple may also be more integrated and, as such, more secular (Carol, 2013).…”

“…Previous studies on religious heterogamy of parents have found lower levels of religiosity among adult children of parents with diverse religious identities (Bengtson, 2013;McPhail, 2019;Myers, 1996). McPhail (2019) notes that religiously heterogamous parents have lower levels of religious commitment themselves and are less likely to involve their child in active religious practice in their home or in a religious community.…”

“…In describing how a child absorbs religious beliefs and values from significant others, previous literature (e.g. Bengtson, 2013;McPhail, 2019;Myers, 1996;Regnerus et al, 2004) focuses on the particularly important role that parents play in shaping religious identities. Myers (1996) finds that parental religiosity, family structure, and the quality of parent-child relationships are especially influential in this process.…”

“…Although Generation 1 attends more frequently than natives and Generation 2.5 less frequently, these differences are not substantial enough to be statistically significant. One possible explanation for why Generation 2 has higher rates of monthly attendance is the conscious and explicit religious socialization in families with two immigrant parents whose goal may be to reinforce a cultural background (McPhail, 2019). Alternatively, given their lower rates of religious belonging and weekly prayer compared to the first generation, this finding can also result from a nonreligious social aspect of monthly attendance that otherwise benefits the second generation (Connor, 2014).…”

“…The lowest level of religiosity among Generation 2.5 goes hand in hand with the theory that when parents come from diverse cultural backgrounds, and thus potentially heterogamous religious backgrounds, the religious socialization in the household tends to be limited in general, but particularly when one partner is secular (Bengtson, 2013;McPhail, 2019;Myers, 1996). It also follows the assumption that immigrants who are open to intermarriage may already be more integrated and secular (Carol, 2013), which explains why they would be less likely to raise a religiously active child.…”