Die Abkehr von der organisierten Religion scheint in modernen Gesellschaften mit sinkenden Geburtenraten verbunden zu sein. Eine Analyse aus Finnland zeigt, dass ein Rückgang der Staatskirchenmitglieder mit dem anhaltenden Trend verbunden ist, dass Paare weniger Kinder bekommen.
Declining state church membership tied to dropping birth rates in Finland
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**Declining state church membership tied to dropping birth rates in Finland**
Moving away from organized religion appears to be linked to declining birth rates in modern societies, according to new research. By examining decades of population data in Finland, an analysis reveals that a drop in state church membership is associated with the continuing trend of couples having fewer children. The research was published in the journal [*Social Science Research*](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103371).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X26000645
This makes perfect sense. The religious incentive to procreate is well understood, child indoctrination increases the number of followers, and eventually soldiers.
Once this incentive goes away, it’s more difficult to justify baby-making for many people, given how harsh the economy is worldwide.
Causation correlation fallacy
How sad the control of women and children seems to be the only way to continue our species. It would be sweeter if people could just share. It might make the world so nice people would enjoy bringing more into it.
Correlation ≠ causation
Meh. Decline in church attendance is due to people not buying in to fairytales anymore.
As capitalism destroys lives, no children are born.
As their lives are destroyed by their fellow man, people stop believing god exists because…how could it?
I dont think that this goes hand in hand. Birth rates are down because of cost. My grandparents had 6 kids and could afford to take care of them all with not that great of a job. I looked up Finland’s cost of living has roughly spiked 25% in 10 years. Church attendance is down because people believe in it less, dont blindly agree with with what they have to say and organized religion looks and runs like a company now.
Does Correlation equal causation now? I suspect it it true in this case but I would argue it is a flimsy assumption.
Proving that one of the core benefits of “organized” religion was for breeding. A bigger tribe to watch over hard won resources leads to survival.
Also explains the fascination of leadership choices among conservative groups. A married leader with a ton of kids.
Religious societies will inherit the earth.
I feel like there’s a few missing steps in this connection.
Youth unemployment rate in Finland is like 25% at the moment and that doesn’t count students or people doing their mandatory military service. With them included there are way over 50 per cent of youth without a job.
It is complained that declining birth numbers result in not having enough (young) workers compared to the elder. Then why there is no work for young people?
And you need some kind of university degree to do even simple job. University studies are useless crap where you take on high school math again and spend time teaching your fellow students. Schools get money depending on how many students get a degree, so expectations get lowered all the time.
Give jobs for young people first, then you can start whining about them not reproducing.
Figures 3 and 5 undercut the paper’s causal framing: their own decomposition attributes only ~0.1 TFR points (~5% of the decline) to compositional change, far short of what „self-reinforcing effect… contributed to the recent fertility decline“ implies in the abstract. The paper does claim a larger, persistent effect for the affiliated-only subgroup elsewhere (Table C.7), but that rests on a separate regression we haven’t seen the coefficients for, and given how fragile the couple-level interaction term (H2) already turned out to be, that claim deserves the same scrutiny rather than being taken at face value.
I wonder if they factor in the fact that the world is a nightmare
But why Finnish people are moving away from church membership?
That answer could be the causation to both drop in religious following and having children too.
Cause
____|____
| |
Less church ________ Fewer children
Intelligent people have fewer children, unintelligent people have alot of children, overtime the unintelligent will take over the intelligent.
If we’re gonna be guessing at causality for falling birth rates , my guess is education not absence of religion. Particularly education of women.
But I also guess there is a cause effect between the availability of education for women and the absence of religion. And the presence of education eroding the presence of religion.
But my guess is that it’s education and to an extent opportunity that’s more closely linked to the birth rate.
I can’t see how that even remotely makes any sense.
For a long, long time, people were ostracised to one degree or another for not being religious. It’s only very recently it’s been seen as perfectly okay to not be religious. I will put my money on many, many people not being religious but saying they were just to fit in.
Religion comes directly from the parents. It’s not very common someone finds religion later in life, it happens but it’s not common, and it’s even less common for people to switch religions. If you were born into a Christian family, you’ll either be Christian or Athiest and up until recently you would just go along with it because it was easier.
If you’re born to atheist parents, you’re usually already more skeptical of religion to begin with.
I think this is why religion is dropping. Nothing to do with birth rates.
More like: Increased education and economic opportunity leads to rejection of mythology and ability to make choices about when and whether to have children.
Ultimately, contraceptives and abortions are the mechanisms which reduce birthrates. Everything else can endorse them, or denounce them, but is not an actual mechanism.
Two words: confounding variable.
Church self selects a little bit to those who want to have children as it’s a core tenet in many religions. Are we surprised?
Honestly feels like all of this is downstream of phone and social media addiction.
Rising educational levels are correlated with fewer child births. Maybe just maybe it’s the former rather than latter that’s the independent variable?
maybe its natural to have a baby and no one tell you to have one
Inflation and employment crisis exists but researcher be like…
People cant buy a house, therefore no kids. Its capitalism not religion that has caused birth rates to drop.
Since the invention of the cellphone, people have been having less kids…
Something are not related
Well, historically women who live in religious societies have less autonomy. It stands to reason that the absence of religion and the increase in choice lends itself towards women opting to have fewer children.