The changing landscape of religious affiliation in Brazil between 1980 and 2010: age, period, and cohort perspectives

Abstract

There has been a remarkable decline in the number of Catholics in Brazil over the last few decades, a fact that is attributed to the growth of Pentecostal churches and to an increase in the number of people with no religious affiliation. We analyzed the age, period, and cohort effects associated with religious affiliation in Brazil from 1980 to 2010, applying the Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort and Cross-Classified Random Effects Model. We observed that age effects were significant but low for Catholics and Pentecostals, and were substantial for those with no religious affiliation, with a negative relationship. For these first two religious affiliations, period effects were of greater magnitude with clear trends: negative for Catholics and positive for Pentecostals. Cohort effects were significant for all three affiliations, but magnitudes were lower than the other two effects. We also verified that the likelihood of being a Pentecostal decreased with formal education, and the opposite occurred for persons with no religious affiliation. These effects, however, were smaller for younger cohorts, possibly due to the reduced social selectivity of recent students pursuing higher education and the increase in overall levels of education.

Cross-cultural dataset for the evolution of religion and morality project

“…Residents of Pesqueiro rely primarily on fish sales and tourism. Most residents are Catholic, although some are Evangelical Protestants 46,47 . For this sample, the Moralistic Deity was the Christian God ( Deus ), and Our Lady of Nazareth ( Nossa Senhora de Nazaré ), the region’s patron saint served as the Local Deity.…”

Analysis of secularization in Brazil

“…According to their results, women attend church more; religious participation increases with age; and higher levels of income are negatively related to church attendance. Coutinho and Golgher (2014) analyzed the possible effects of age, period and cohort to explain the religious metamorphosis in Brazil with the hierarchical model of ageperiodcohort and random effects models with cross-classification data for the last four Brazilian demographic census (1980, 1991, 2000 and 2010). The effects of age were substantial for the category without religion.…”

“…Specifically in the Brazilian case, there is evidence, as in Coutinho and Golgher (2014), that it is necessary to control religious demand for macro-regions. The BRS interviewed people in the South, Northeast and Southeast macro-regions, and added North / Midwest.…”

“…The number of those without religion grew sharply in the past four decades, since in 1980 only 1.9% of Brazilians declared themselves as non-religious (COUTINHO; GOLGHER, 2014). As these numbers increased in recent years in an accelerated manner, the cause is unlikely to be the simple vegetative growth of non-religious people, but the movement of people who belonged to a religion and have decided to abandon it.…”

Cambios en el perfil religioso de la población indígena del Brasil entre 1991 y 2010

“…Si bien el panorama religioso comenzó a cambiar después de la proclamación de la República, cuando la fe católica dejó de ser la religión oficial del Estado, las transformaciones se aceleraron más recientemente, sobre todo después del proceso de redemocratización de la Nueva República. Como se señala en diversos estudios (Alves, Barros y Cavenaghi, 2012;Camurça, 2013;Coutinho y Golgher, 2014), en las últimas décadas se observa un proceso de aumento de la pluralidad religiosa, reducción de las afiliaciones católicas e incremento de las afiliaciones evangélicas en la población total del Brasil.…”