Religiosity of Migrants and Natives in Western Europe 2002–2018: Convergence and Divergence

Abstract

Patterns of religiosity among both settled and migrant populations have been the subject of intense, and often conflicting, scholarly debate. In Europe, most analysis of migrant religiosity has focused on Islam, though migrants to Western European countries come from a wide range of religions and denominations. Despite a general assumption of assimilation over generations to greater secularization, evidence on trends in religiosity across migrants of different religions and for both first and second generations remains partial. We use the European Social Survey (rounds 1–9) to examine three dimensions of religiosity encompassing both performative and subjective domains, across 15 Western European destination countries over a 16-year period. While variation in religiosity between different affiliations is not large, migrants tend to have higher religiosity than non-migrants across the religious affiliations we consider. Over time we see that while natives show an overall decline in religiosity over the period, first- and second-generation Protestants and Muslims show increases in religiosity, providing some evidence for religious revival. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of secularization and religious revival, and the future religious landscape of Europe.

Religious transmission and cultural negotiation in first‐generation Muslim migrant parents in Italy: A qualitative study

“…Studies on the acculturation experiences of Muslim migrants in the diaspora have examined the relationship between religious identification and affiliation with the culture of the host society (Triandafyllidou, 2002; Vertovec & Rogers, 2018) and the dynamics of religious visibility and the similarities and differences in religious behaviour across generations (Guveli & Platt, 2023; Kurien, 2021; Molteni & van Tubergen, 2022). Broadly speaking, research suggests that a context where Islam is not welcomed may reinforce religious identification (Güngör et al, 2011), which also serves as a strategy for coping with the life as an immigrant in a new context (Molteni & Dimitriadis, 2021).…”

Religion and Fertility: A Longitudinal Register Study Examining Differences by Sex, Parity, Partner’s Religion, and Religious Conversion in Finland

“…Some are relatively rare in the cohorts in our data but constitute a rapidly growing share of the European religious landscape due to international migration, such as Muslims and Hindus. The growing importance of non-European religions is a common theme in research on the sociology of religion in Europe (Guveli & Platt, 2023 ).…”