Religion and fertility in the United States: New patterns

Abstract

In the United States, the baby boom-era pattern of high Catholic and low Protestant fertility has ended. Among non-Hispanic whites in the 1980s, Catholic total fertility rates (TFRs) were about one-quarter of a child lower than Protestant rates (1.64 vs. 1.91). Most of the Protestant-Catholic difference is related to later and less frequent marriage among Catholics. Future research on the demography of religious groups should focus on explaining the delayed marriage pattern of Catholics, the high fertility of Mormons and frequently attending Protestants, and the very low fertility of those with no religious affiliation.

The future size of religiously affiliated and unaffiliated populations

“…Previous country-level studies have found that on average the unaffiliated begin having their children at an older age than the affiliated and have fewer children (Mosher, Williams et al 1992, Skirbekk, Kaufmann et al 2010. Using data aggregated from each country, we estimate that the global 2010−15 Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for unaffiliated women is 1.65 children per woman, nearly a full child less than the rate for religiously affiliated women of 2.59 children per woman.…”

Religion and fertility: The French connection

“…The contribution of this paper to the theory consists in a quantitative test detecting some mechanisms at play in the data set which are compatible with the alternative hypotheses. Interestingly enough, Mosher, Johnson, and Williams (1992) show that none of these hypotheses fully explain the fertility differential between Catholics and Protestants in the United States. I reach a somewhat identical conclusion for France using quantitative methods and concerning the fertility differences between churchgoing Catholics and others.…”

Religion, Politics, and the Social Capital of Children

“…Though not perfectly correlated with denomination, these items reflect religious belief and behavior and are strong predictors of evangelical Protestant affiliation (Layman 2001;Smith 1990;Steensland et al 2000). Unfortunately, the NAES affiliation measure only includes the categories Protestant, (Hout, Greely, and Wilde 2001;Mosher et al 1992) when exploring 11 fertility differences among American Christians. To test the hypothesis that the beliefs and messages that may mobilize conservative women politically are encouraging higher fertility rates, it is important to determine whether religious traditionalists are having more children than their peers, which is a slightly different measure than previously used in the literature.…”

“…Traditionally, most fertility studies involving religious influence have addressed the differences between Catholics and Protestants, as Catholics tended to have larger families; but currently, this gap is almost nonexistent due to later marriage by Catholics (resulting in fewer children) and larger families of Protestants who attend church frequently (Lehrer 2004;McQuillan 2004;Mosher, Williams and Johnson 1992). More recent studies focus on the fertility differentials between mainline and evangelical Protestants, mostly attributed to doctrinal 5 differences of evangelicals espousing stronger pronatalist views (be fruitful and multiply) and an aversion to contraceptives and abortion (playing God) (Marcum 1981;McQuillan 2004).…”

“…Some of the highest fertility rates in the United States occur in areas with higher concentrations of evangelical Christians 1 or Mormons (Lesthaeghe and Neidert 2006), at the individual level, though individually evangelical Christians only have slightly more children than those of other faith traditions (Hout, Greeley and Wilde 2001;Lehrer 2004;Mosher, Williams, and Johnson 1992). Their families may not be larger than most, but the presence of children in the home may affect political engagement differently for evangelical mothers as compared to their peers.…”