JOURNAL for the

SCIENTIFIC STUDY of RELIGION

Explaining Cross-National Variation in the Effect

of Higher Education on Religiosity

PHILIP SCHWADEL
Department of Sociology
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

While sociologists have long argued that higher education has a secularizing influence, recent research emphasizes
the moderating role of social contexts in the relationship between social class and religion. I extend this line of
research by examining sources of cross-national variation in the association between higher education and
religiosity using survey data from more than 46,000 respondents in 39 nations. Multilevel models of a religiosity
scale show (1) in the aggregate, higher education has a moderate, negative effect on the religiosity scale, (2) this
effect varies considerably across nations, and (3) the negative effect of higher education on religiosity is most
robust in relatively religious nations. These results demonstrate the importance of national contexts in moderating
the effect of education on religiosity. The results also support a cultural diffusion argument that suggests that
the highly educated are innovators and early adopters of secular behaviors but that low levels of religiosity then
diffuse to less-educated segments of a population as secularity becomes more common.

Keywords: education, religiosity, international.

INTRODUCTION

The negative effect of secular education on religiosity is often taken for granted in the social
sciences (Iannaccone, Stark, and Finke 1998). This view dates back to the work of Comte, Weber,
and Durkheim, and it remains prevalent among contemporary researchers (e.g., Ruiter and van
Tubergen 2009; Wilson 1982). University education in particular is regularly hypothesized to lead
to low levels of religious belief and activity (e.g., Beckwith 1985; Caplovitz and Sherrow 1977;
Halman and Draulans 2006; Johnson 1997; Miller 1967). Empirical research, however, suggests
that higher education is not always associated with a lack of religiosity (e.g., Merrill, Lyon, and
Jensen 2003; Uecker, Regnerus, and Vaaler 2007). In particular, recent research shows that social
contexts often moderate the relationship between education and religiosity (e.g., McFarland,
Wright, and Weakliem 2011; Schwadel 2011; Stroope 2011). Extending this line of research, I
examine the sources of cross-national variation in the association between university education
and religiosity.
The influence of higher education on religiosity should vary across national contexts since the
content and social significance of higher education as well as the meaning associated with religious
belief and activity vary across cultures and nations (Levy 2006; Schwartz 2007; Weber 1948).
I explore three potential moderating factors that may contribute to this cross-national variation
in the effect of education on religiosity. First, cultural innovations, such as secularity (Tamney,
Powell, and Johnson 1989), tend to diffuse from highly educated to less-educated segments of
the population as the innovation becomes more widespread (Elias 2000; Rogers 2003; Young
and Willmott 1973). Thus, the negative effect of education on religiosity may be attenuated in
nations where secularity is more prevalent. Second, communist governments are relatively hostile

Correspondence should be addressed to Philip Schwadel, Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln,

P.O. Box 880324, Lincoln, NE 68588-0324. E-mail: pschwadel2@unl.edu

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2015) 54(2):402–418


C 2015 The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion
EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ON RELIGIOSITY 403

toward organized religion (Barber 2011; Barro and McCleary 2003). This antagonism toward
organized religion may be inculcated through educational institutions, leading the negative effect
of education on religiosity to be exacerbated in communist and formerly communist nations
(Sacerdote and Glaeser 2001). Third, research suggests that one reason college graduates are less
religious is that they disproportionately come from homes high in cultural capital (e.g., Wilson
and Sherkat 1994; Wuthnow and Mellinger 1978). This difference in cultural capital should
decline as college education becomes more common. Consequently, the negative effect of higher
education on religiosity may be minimized in nations with higher proportions of college-educated
citizens.
This article examines cross-national variation in the effect of university education on individ-
ual religiosity with data from more than 46,000 respondents in 39 nations. Multilevel models are
used to estimate individual-level effects, variation in the effect of higher education, nation-level
effects, and cross-level interactions, with a four-item religiosity scale as the dependent variable.
The results show that (1) in the aggregate, higher education has a moderate, negative effect
on the religiosity scale, (2) this effect varies considerably across nations, and (3) the negative
effect of higher education on religiosity is most robust in relatively religious nations. I con-
clude with a discussion of the varying association between higher education and religiosity, the
importance of social contexts to both the practice of religion and the cultural impact of higher ed-
ucation, and the diffusion of secular innovations from the highly educated to the remainder of the
population.

HIGHER EDUCATION AND RELIGIOSITY

Social theorists from Weber ([1922] 1993) to Berger (1967) and Habermas (1990) have
emphasized the conflict between religion and modernity. These researchers suggest that religion
will decline in modern societies, or at least be transformed if it is to survive. Working within this
classical secularization perspective, many sociologists view secular education as antithetical to
traditional forms of religion, and therefore assume that religiosity is destined to decline as secular
education becomes more widespread (e.g., Comte [1865] 2009; Ruiter and van Tubergen 2009;
Wilson 1982). In particular, the contemporary secularization literature focuses on the relationship
between growth in education and waning religious belief, affiliation, and participation, which
Swatos and Christiano (1999) refer to as the “decline in religion thesis.” Researchers contend
that the focus on knowledge and learning in secular universities is incompatible with religion’s
emphasis on mystery and revelation (e.g., Halman and Draulans 2006; Miller 1967; cf. Gould
1999). This conflicting worldviews argument (Schwadel 2011) suggests that there is dissonance
between what is taught in secular universities—particularly the emphasis on science and empiri-
cism – and the content of many religious doctrines, which leads to low levels of religious belief
and participation among the college educated (Beckwith 1985; Johnson 1997; Wilson 1982).
Although the dominant perspective suggests that higher education is negatively associated
with religiosity, empirical research on education and religion using international samples has
produced mixed results (e.g., Barber 2011; Barro and McCleary 2003; Bettendorf and Dijkgraaf
2008; Braun 2012; Sacerdote and Glaeser 2001). A key limitation to this research is the failure to
simultaneously account for individual and nation-level relationships. Methodologically, previous
research has generally conflated individual and nation-level relationships (Raudenbush and Bryk
2002). Theoretically, there are reasons to expect both individual and nation-level education to
affect religiosity.
At the individual level, there is strong support for the view that college education should
reduce religiosity. In particular, researchers suggest that the content of higher education is con-
tradictory to some religious beliefs and doctrines (Beckwith 1985; Halman and Draulans 2006;
Johnson 1997; Schwadel 2011). Moreover, university education is associated with changes in
404 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

social networks and with high levels of cultural capital, which are both in turn associated with
low levels of religiosity (Mayrl and Uecker 2011; Smith and Snell 2009; Wilson and Sherkat
1994; Wuthnow and Mellinger 1978). Thus:
H1: Individual-level university education is negatively associated with religiosity.
There is also support for the proposition that nation-level education reduces individuals’
religiosity. The average level of education in a nation reflects the level of modernity (Barber
2011; Kurtz 2007), and the secularization literature suggests that modernity leads to declines in
religiosity (e.g., Bruce 2002; Wilson 1982). The average level of education is also associated
with greater acceptance of secularism (Schwadel and Garneau 2014), which may lead to religious
decline by making it more socially acceptable. Thus:
H2: The average level of university education in a nation is negatively associated with religiosity.
In addition to individual-level education affecting religiosity in the aggregate, the effect
of individual-level education should vary across nations. What it means to be highly educated
is influenced by local culture and social structures. The impact of education on attitudes and
behaviors often differs across nations (e.g., Coenders and Scheepers 2003; Linos and West 2003;
Sayer, Gauthier, and Furstenberg 2004; Weil 1985). Educational institutions are pivotal to the
transmission of beliefs and values (Clark 2007), including culturally and regionally specific
beliefs and values (Clark 1983; Levy 2006). Consequently, the impact of higher education on
religiosity is likely to vary across nations as the cultural and substantive content of higher education
varies.
The impact of higher education on religiosity should also vary as the implications of reli-
giosity and secularity vary across nations. The social significance of being religious or secular
is influenced by the national context (Schwartz 2007; Weber 1948). For instance, there has
been growing acceptance of atheism in Europe since the Enlightenment (Chadwick 1975) while
Americans remain highly intolerant of atheists (Edgell, Gerteis, and Hartmann 2006). The form
and progress of secularization itself is dependent on the historic and geographic context (Gorski
2000; Martin 1978). The effects of industrialization and modernization on religious belief and
participation vary across nations (Casanova 1994), leading to what Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt
(2012:904) refer to as multiple secularities: “the recognition that the notions of the secular, of
secularism and secularity are charged with highly divergent meanings that are linked to different
political and cultural contexts and histories of social conflict.” The third hypothesis addresses
differences across nations in both the impact of higher education and the social significance of
religiosity:
H3: The effect of (individual-level) university education on religiosity varies across nations.

SOURCES OF CROSS-NATIONAL VARIATION

In addition to establishing the prevalence of cross-national variation in the effect of higher

education on religiosity, I examine three potential sources of this variation. First, in the only other
empirical analysis of international variation in the effect of education on religiosity, Sacerdote and
Glaeser (2001) find that the negative effect of education on religiosity is most robust in communist
and previously communist nations. In general, citizens of communist and formerly communist
nations are relatively secular, which researchers suggest is a result of government opposition to
religion (e.g., Barber 2011; Barro and McCleary 2003). Sacerdote and Glaeser (2001) argue that
opposition to religion in communist and former communist governments is inculcated through
educational institutions. Thus, more education means greater exposure to anti-religious messages.
Following this line of reasoning:
EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ON RELIGIOSITY 405

H4: The negative effect of (individual-level) university education on religiosity is greatest in

communist and formerly communist nations.
Although Sacerdote and Glaeser (2001) argue that communism is a pivotal moderating factor,
their analysis does not account for other potential moderating factors or other relevant nation-level
attributes that can influence the association between education and religiosity.
The second potential moderating factor is the average level of higher education. As noted
above, the association between higher education and religiosity may be partially due to the
disproportionate selection of those with high levels of cultural capital into colleges and uni-
versities (Wilson and Sherkat 1994; Wuthnow and Mellinger 1978). As college education be-
comes more common, however, its association with coming from a high-capital home should
decline, which could lead to a reduction in the effect of higher education on religiosity.
Consequently:
H5: The negative effect of (individual-level) university education on religiosity should be mini-
mized in highly educated nations.
Finally, secularity, like other cultural innovations (Tamney, Powell, and Johnson 1989), may
simply diffuse across segments of a population as it becomes more commonplace. New ideas,
values, and norms often begin with the upper classes (Elias 2000), or in this case with the highly
educated. Over time, new values and ideas tend to spread to other social classes, leading to
a potential decline in the effect of social class as a new idea or value becomes more widely
accepted (Fischer and Hout 2006). Young and Willmott (1973) use the term principle of stratified
diffusion to describe this process. In particular, the liberalizing effects of higher education may
diffuse to the rest of the population (Pampel and Hunter 2012; Wejnert 2002). In Rogers’s (2003)
terminology, the highly educated are “innovators” and “early adopters” while those with lower
levels of education lag behind in embracing new ways of being religious (or irreligious). Following
the diffusion literature, then:
H6: The negative effect of (individual-level) university education on religiosity is greatest in
relatively religious nations.
This article has three primary goals. First, I disentangle the individual and nation-level effects
of higher education on religiosity, addressing H1 and H2. Second, I investigate the prevalence
of cross-national variation in the association between higher education and religiosity, which
addresses H3. Third, I identify nation-level characteristics that moderate the association between
higher education and religiosity, testing H4, H5, and H6.

DATA

I use data from the 2008 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) to examine cross-
national variation in the association between higher education and religiosity. The 2008 ISSP
includes a series of questions about religious beliefs and activities that is not in other years of
the ISSP or in other international surveys, making it uniquely suited to the current research. The
2008 ISSP sample consists of 59,986 respondents in 40 nations (between 1,000 and 3,292 in each
nation). The mode of data collection varied across nations, including face-to-face interviews,
self-completed mail surveys, and phone interviews. I removed respondents from Portugal from
the sample because the Portugal survey did not include key controls needed for the analysis,
particularly urbanity (Gill and Lundsgaarde 2004). The sampling frame in each nation was
generally noninstitutionalized adults ages 18 and older, though five nations sampled younger
respondents. All analyses are limited to respondents who are age 25 and older to avoid limiting
the variation in higher education. After deleting cases with missing data, those from Portugal,
and those younger than 25 years of age, the sample size is 46,003. The sample is predominantly
406 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

comprised of Christians (71 percent) and those with no affiliation (18 percent).1 For more
information on the 2008 ISSP, including nation-specific procedures and response rates, see ISSP
Research Group (2012).

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable is a scale of religiosity composed of standardized measures of prayer,

belief in God, self-identification as religious, and religious service attendance.2 Frequency of
prayer is a 7-category variable ranging from never to several times a week. Belief in God is
a 6-category variable ranging from do not believe in God to believe in God without doubts.
Identifying as nonreligious is a 7-category variable ranging from extremely nonreligious to
extremely religious. Frequency of religious service attendance is a 9-category variable ranging
from never to several times a week. Each variable is standardized with a mean of 0 and standard
deviation of 1 before summing to create the scale; and the scale itself is then standardized so it
has a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. Cronbach’s alpha for the religiosity scale is .87, and
all four variables contribute to increasing the alpha. Not surprisingly, the religiosity scale varies
considerably across nations, with the mean ranging from a low of −.90 in the Czech Republic to
a high of .97 in the Philippines (see Table 2). Descriptive statistics for all variables are reported
in Table 1.

Individual-Level Independent Variables

The primary independent variable is an individual-level measure of higher education: a

dichotomous measure of having a university degree. All models also include individual-level
controls for age, sex, marital status, and urbanity. Age is a continuous variable ranging from 25 to
89. Respondents 89 years old and older are pooled into a single category (89) in all nations because
the U.S. survey pooled respondents aged 89 and older. Age is centered on its mean. Age-squared
is included in the models to compensate for nonlinear effects of age. Dummy variables for female
respondents and married respondents control for sex and marital status. A dummy variable for
respondents who describe their home as urban or a big city (urban) and a dummy variable for
respondents who describe their home as suburban or the outskirts of a big city (suburban) control
for location, with small towns, villages, and homes in the country or on farms as the reference
category.

1 Less than 4 percent of the sample is Muslim, and more than 70 percent of the Muslim portion of the sample is from
Turkey. The results are similar when respondents from Turkey are deleted from the sample. Additionally, just over
2 percent of respondents are Buddhist and less than 2 percent identify with “other East Asian religions.” The results are
also similar when respondents from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are deleted from the sample.
2 The ISSP also contains measures of belief in the afterlife and belief in miracles. Exploratory factor analysis (not shown)
produced two factors, with the measures of belief in the afterlife and belief in miracles loading into a separate factor
from the measures of service attendance, belief in God, prayer, and self-identification as religious. Consequently, belief
in the afterlife and belief in miracles are not included in the religiosity scale. Confirmatory factor analysis validates
combining the measures of service attendance, belief in God, prayer, and self-identification as religious into a single
scale. A generalized structural equations model, adjusted for clustering, with the four ordinal variables has a significant
(p < .001) model chi-square of 31.67 (2 degrees of freedom), which is expected given the large sample size. More
importantly, the RMSEA (.018) is well below the widely used cut-off point of .05, and the CFI (.993) and TLI (.978) are
above the cut-off point of .95 (Hu and Bentler 1999).
EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ON RELIGIOSITY 407

Table 1: Descriptive statistics

Percent Mean Standard Deviation

Level 1 (N = 46,003)
Religiosity scale — .00 1.00
University degree 17 — —
Female 55 — —
Age — 49.75 15.49
Married 60 — —
Urban 30 — —
Suburban 14 — —
Level 2 (N = 39)
Mean university degree — .17 .08
Communist 23 — —
Government regulation index — .93 1.35
Per capita GDP (/1,000) — 32.35 22.76
Mean no religion — .00 1.00

Nation-Level Independent Variables

Three focal nation-level variables are used to test the three moderating factors discussed in
H4, H5, and H6. Country-specific values for nation-level variables and the dependent variable
are reported in Table 2. First, the educational context is assessed with the mean of the university
degree variable in each nation. As Table 2 shows, the mean with a university degree ranges
from .06 in South Africa to .40 in Norway. Second, a dummy variable indicates communist and
formerly communist nations. This measure is based on La Porta et al.’s (1998) categorization of
national legal origins. Nine nations are considered to have communist or formerly communist
political structures: Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Russia, the Slovak
Republic, Slovenia, and Ukraine. Third, the mean with no religious affiliation (“no religion”),
standardized to adjust for the positive skew, is used as a proxy for the level of religiosity in a
nation.3 The standardized mean with no religion variable ranges from −1.28 in the Philippines to
2.59 in Japan. As I discuss in greater detail below, this variable will be used in conjunction with
the correlation between the random slope for education and the random intercept to examine how
the effect of education on religiosity varies by the average level of religiosity in each nation.
Two additional nation-level measures are included as control variables. First, per capita gross
domestic product (GDP) is included in the models since economic development may influence
religiosity (Bettendorf and Dijkgraaf 2008). Norris and Inglehart (2004), for example, argue that
the existential security provided by economic development reduces the importance of religion,
which means per capita GDP should be negatively associated with religiosity. The 2008 per
capita GDP in each nation is derived from the International Monetary Fund and reported in U.S.
dollars. Per capita GDP is divided by 1,000 to produce more interpretable coefficients. The GDP
measure ranges from 1.91 in the Philippines to 102.52 in Norway. Second, government regulation
of religion can also influence religiosity (Fox and Tabory 2008; Gill and Lundsgaarde 2004). For
instance, Finke and Stark (1992) argue that competition among religious organizations promotes
religious vitality, and government regulation of religion limits competition. Regulation should,
therefore, negatively affect religiosity. The Government Regulation Index (GRI) developed by

3 The national mean with no religion and the mean of the religiosity scale in each nation have a correlation of −.741
(p < .001).
408 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

Table 2: Country-specific values for level-2 variables and dependent variable

Mean Mean
University GDP Mean No Religiosity
Degree Communist GRI (/1,000) Religiona Scalea
Australia .29 0 .00 50.15 1.47 −.48
Austria .13 0 1.39 52.16 −.12 −.20
Belgium .13 0 .83 49.43 .05 −.45
Chile .08 0 .00 10.81 −.86 .44
Croatia .12 1 .00 14.41 −.89 .38
Cyprus .21 0 .83 32.19 −1.26 .45
Czech Republic .09 1 .00 21.04 2.50 −.90
Denmark .17 0 .83 67.39 −.38 −.64
Dominican Republic .08 0 .00 5.13 −1.10 .61
Finland .20 0 .00 54.58 −.14 −.31
France .27 0 1.67 48.01 1.52 −.65
Germany .14 0 2.22 46.50 .90 −.56
Hungary .15 1 .00 16.34 −.36 −.45
Ireland .14 0 .00 64.66 −.87 .50
Israel .25 0 3.89 26.54 −1.12 −.02
Italy .08 0 .00 40.45 −.66 .23
Japan .18 0 .00 37.94 2.59 −.45
Latvia .23 1 1.67 14.93 1.03 −.38
Mexico .20 0 3.06 10.75 −.83 .57
Netherlands .11 0 .00 54.45 1.42 −.41
New Zealand .23 0 .00 31.71 1.10 −.39
Norway .40 0 .00 102.52 −.28 −.70
Philippines .14 0 .00 1.91 −1.28 .97
Poland .19 1 .00 14.89 −.54 .57
Russia .24 1 3.89 12.58 −.26 −.42
Slovak Republic .14 1 .56 18.58 −.27 .20
Slovenia .19 1 .00 28.33 −.07 −.27
South Africa .06 0 .00 6.17 −.42 .85
South Korea .29 0 .00 19.64 1.25 −.28
Spain .08 0 .83 36.97 −.02 .17
Sweden .29 0 .00 55.62 .55 −.77
Switzerland .11 0 1.67 67.38 .33 .07
Taiwan .23 0 .00 18.31 −.54 .12
Turkey .07 0 4.44 11.46 −1.26 .96
Ukraine .23 1 2.22 4.32 −.75 .10
United Kingdom .19 0 2.22 45.68 .28 .04
United States .29 0 .00 47.03 −.31 .46
Uruguay .11 0 .00 8.86 .39 −.22
Venezuela .08 0 3.89 11.83 −.80 .65
a Standardized to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1.

Grim and Finke (2006) is used to measure government control and regulation of religion. The GRI
assesses “restrictions placed on the practice, profession, or selection of religion by the official
laws, policies, or administrative actions of the state” (Grim and Finke 2006:7). The GRI is 0 in
22 nations, and ranges between .56 and 4.44 in the remaining 17 nations.
EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ON RELIGIOSITY 409

ANALYTIC STRATEGY

The research question and the high levels of within-nation clustering in both higher education
and religiosity suggest using an analysis technique that simultaneously addresses individual-level
and nation-level associations. Consequently, I use two-level multilevel models with individuals
nested in nations. These models adjust for lack of independence between variation at level 1
(individuals) and level 2 (nations) with separate level-1 and level-2 error terms (Raudenbush and
Bryk 2002). The level-1 model is as follows:

Religioisty Scaleij = β0 + β1 University Degreeij + β2 Femaleij + β3 Marriedij

+ β4 Urbanij + β5 Suburbanij + β6 Ageij + β7 Age2ij + ri j ,

where the religiosity of person i in nation j is regressed on education, sex, marital status, city size,
and age, with the error term or variance component r . The level-2 model is as follows:

β0 j = γ00 + γ01 Communist j + γ02 Mean University Degree j + γ03 Mean No Religion j
+ γ04 GDP j + γ05 GRI j + u 0 j ,

where γ01 through γ05 are the coefficients for nation-level variables, and u 0 j represents the error
or unexplained variation specific to nation j. When the independent variables are centered on the
overall mean, γ00 + u 0 j is the adjusted mean of the dependent variable (religiosity) for nation j.
This random intercept will be a focus of the analysis below.
Another advantage to multilevel models is the ability to include random slopes, which
are used to assess variation in the effect of university degree across nations. Moreover, cross-
level interactions between the level-1 measure of university degree and the level-2 measures of
communism, education, and no religion gauge variation in the association between university
degree and religiosity by nation-level characteristics. The cross-level interactions and random
slope for education are incorporated into the coefficient for higher education as follows:

β1j = γ10 + γ11 Communist j + γ12 Mean University Degree j

+ γ13 Mean No Religion j + u 1j ,

where u 1 j is the variation in the slope of university degree specific to nation j, and γ11 , γ12 , and
γ13 are the interaction terms. Presentation of the results is divided into two sections reflecting
two separate approaches to testing H6. H6 proposes that the effect of education on religiosity
varies by the average level of religiosity in the nation. Ideally, this proposition would be tested
with an interaction between education and nation-level religiosity. Unfortunately, the mean of
the religiosity scale cannot be a level-2 predictor because the religiosity scale, measured at level
1, is the dependent variable. Consequently, I use two alternative methods of addressing H6.
First, I examine the correlation between the random intercept, which is the adjusted mean of
the religiosity scale in each nation, and the random slope for university degree. If H6 is correct,
then variation in the slope of education (u 1 j ) should be negatively correlated with variation in
the intercept (u 0 j ). Second, I present results from models with the mean with no religion at level
2 as a proxy for nation-level religiosity. If H6 is correct, there should be a positive interaction
between level-1 university degree and level-2 mean with no religion.
The analyses are conducted in HLM 7. All independent variables other than level-1 university
degree are centered on the overall or grand mean. In the first set of models, which focus partially on
the covariance between the random slope and intercept, level-1 university degree is not centered
because centering influences the Tau matrix and (as a result) the correlation of interest (Kreft, De
Leeuw, and Aiken 1995). In the second set of models, level-1 university degree is centered on the
410 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

Table 3: Multilevel regression models of religiosity scale

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

b SE b SE b SE
Fixed Effects
Intercept −.006 .087 −.006 .067 −.006 .067
Level-1 variables
University degree −.068 .029* −.067 .029* −.068 .029*
*Communist −.010 .064
*Mean university degree .319 .371
Urban −.115 .025*** −.116 .025*** −.116 .025***
Suburban −.088 .020*** −.088 .020*** −.088 .020***
Female .323 .025*** .324 .025*** .324 .025***
Married .134 .013*** .134 .013*** .134 .013***
Age .010 .001*** .010 .001*** .011 .001***
Age squareda .014 .003*** .014 .003*** .014 .003***
Level-2 variables
Communist −.493 .165** −.484 .186*
Mean university degree −1.063 .883 −1.338 .978
GRI −.006 .042 −.006 .042
Per capita GDP −.014 .004*** −.014 .004***
Random Effects
Variance components
Level-1 intercept (r) .665 .665 .665
Level-2 intercept (u0 ) .301*** .195*** .196***
University degree slope (u1 ) .029*** .029*** .031***
u0 & u1 correlation −.331* −.411** −.409**
Deviance 112,193 112,185 112,187
Note: All independent variables except for level-1 university degree are centered on the overall mean; N = 46,003.
a Coefficient and standard error multiplied by 100.

*p ࣘ .05; **p ࣘ .01; ***p ࣘ .001 (2-tailed test).

group (i.e., nation) mean, which is the preferred approach when focusing on how the effect of a
level-1 variable varies across level-2 units (Enders and Tofighi 2007).

RESULTS

Multilevel Models with Random Slope and Intercept Correlations

Results from the first set of multilevel models of the religiosity scale are reported in Table 3.
Preliminary analyses (not shown) indicate that both introducing the random slope for university
degree and allowing covariance between the random effects improve model fit.4 Thus, all models
include a random slope for university degree and do not constrain the covariance of random
effects. Beginning with the fixed effects in Model 1, the results show that, in the aggregate,

4 Adding the random slope for university degree reduces the deviance by 161 (χ 2 = 161 with 2 degrees of freedom,
p < .001). Allowing covariance between the random slope for university degree and the random intercept reduces the
deviance by 7 (χ 2 = 7 with 1 degree of freedom, p < .01).
EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ON RELIGIOSITY 411

Figure 1
Plot of nation-specific effects of university degree on religiosity scale

.25
University Degree Coefficient
0
-.25
-.5

0 .25 .5 .75 1
Proportion of Nations

Note: Figure graphs results from random slope for university degree from Model 1 in Table 3.

university degree is associated with a moderate decline in religiosity (b = −.068). This finding
supports H1. The fixed effects results also show that living in a large city or the suburbs of a large
city is negatively associated with the religiosity scale. Conversely, female, married, and age have
positive effects on the religiosity scale.
The random slope in Model 1 indicates that the effect of university degree varies considerably
across nations (variance component = .029). This variation is depicted in Figure 1, which plots
the coefficient for university degree in each of the 39 nations. As this figure shows, the effect
of university degree ranges from robustly negative to positive. The largest negative effects of
university degree are in Israel (b = −.427) and Italy (b = −.409). University degree has a
relatively strong, positive effect (b > .16) in Sweden, New Zealand, and South Korea. Overall,
the effect of university degree is positive and significant (p < .05) in 9 nations, negative and
significant in 18 nations, and has no significant effect in 12 nations. These results support H3 by
demonstrating that the effect of higher education on secularity varies substantially across nations.
The random effects in Model 1 suggest that the average level of religiosity in each nation
is associated with the effect of university degree. There is a negative correlation between the
random intercept and the random slope for university degree (−.331), which means that the effect
of university degree tends to become more robustly negative as the mean of the religiosity scale
increases. For instance, the average coefficient for university degree in the 10 nations with the
lowest adjusted mean religiosity (i.e., intercept) is .004, while the average coefficient in the 10
nations with the highest adjusted mean religiosity is −.120. This finding lends some support to
H6.
Model 2 includes nation-level independent variables. The addition of level-2 variables to
the model produces a notable reduction in the variation between nations. Specifically, the vari-
ance component declines from .301 in Model 1 to .195 in Model 2. Nonetheless, there is still a
considerable amount of unexplained between-nation variation in the religiosity scale. Neither
the Government Regulation Index nor the mean with a university degree have a meaning-
ful effect on the religiosity scale. Both living in a communist or formerly communist nation
412 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

(b = −.493) and living in a nation with higher GDP per capita (b = −.014) are negatively
associated with the religiosity scale. These results do not support H2, which predicts that living
in a more highly educated nation is negatively associated with religiosity. Alternative analyses
(not shown) indicate that mean university degree has a relatively strong, negative effect on the
religiosity scale when per capita GDP is not included in the model. The correlation between
the random slope for university degree and the random intercept is notably larger (−.411) when
level-2 variables are included in the model, which lends further support to H6.
Model 3 adds interactions between individual-level university degree and both communism
and nation-level university degree. Neither interaction is statistically significant. These results do
not support H4, which proposes that the negative effect of education is greatest in communist
nations, or H5, which proposes that the negative effect of education is diminished in highly
educated nations. Overall, the results in Table 3 show that, in the aggregate, university degree
has a moderate, negative effect on the religiosity scale, the effect of university degree varies
considerably across nations, and this variation is correlated with the average level of religiosity
in each nation.

Multilevel Models with Mean No Religion at Level 2

The models in Table 4 are identical to those in Table 3 with two exceptions. First, level-1
university degree is centered on the group or nation mean (Enders and Tofighi 2007). Second,
rather than focusing on the correlation between the random intercept and slope, I examine how the
religious context influences the effect of education on religiosity by introducing the mean with no
religion as a level-2 variable. Model 4 in Table 4 duplicates Model 1 in Table 3 with the exception
of the centering of university degree. Thus, the results from Model 4 are almost identical to those
from Model 1. The intercept is the only fixed effect coefficient to change meaningfully, which
is expected when the centering of an independent variable has changed. Most importantly, the
deviance statistic does not change, which means the model fit is unchanged; the random slope for
university degree is nearly identical, meaning variation in the effect of university degree shown
in Figure 1 is not influenced by centering.
Model 5 includes level-2 variables, including the mean with no religion. In contrast to the
models in Table 3, there is a substantial reduction in the level-2 variance (u 0 ) due to the addition
of level-2 variables, from .291 in Model 4 to .085 in Model 5. The religious context of nations,
operationalized through the mean with no religion, explains much of the across-nation variation
in the religiosity scale. The fixed effect coefficient shows that a 1 standard deviation increase in
the mean with no religion is associated with a .318 standard deviation decline in the religiosity
scale for citizens of that nation. Although the coefficients are moderately reduced compared to
Model 2, GDP and communism continue to have negative effects on the religiosity scale when
mean with no religion is in the model.
Model 6 in Table 4 includes cross-level interactions between level-1 university degree and the
three focal level-2 variables. Similar to Model 3 in Table 3, the individual-level effect of university
degree does not vary meaningfully by communism or the mean with a university degree. Again,
there is no support for H4 and H5. There is, however, a significant, positive interaction between
level-1 university degree and the mean with no religion (b = .065). This translates into a strong,
negative effect of university degree in relatively religious nations and a moderate, positive effect
in relatively secular nations. For instance, in a nation that is 2 standard deviations below the mean
of the no religion variable, the university degree coefficient is −.198. Conversely, in a nation
that is 2 standard deviations above the mean of the no religion variable, the university degree
coefficient is .061. In combination with the correlation between the random slope of university
degree and the random intercept shown in Table 3, the interaction between university degree and
the mean with no religion lends strong support to H6. On the whole, these results show that the
considerable cross-national variation in the effect of higher education on religiosity, ranging from
EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ON RELIGIOSITY 413

Table 4: Multilevel regression models of religiosity scale with mean no religion at level 2

Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

b SE b SE b SE
Fixed Effects
Intercept −.016 .086 −.016 .043 −.016 .043
Level-1 variables
University degree −.068 .029* −.067 .029* −.069 .027*
*Communist −.013 .058
*Mean university degree .163 .342
*Mean no religion .065 .027*
Urban −.115 .025*** −.116 .025*** −.116 .025***
Suburban −.088 .020*** −.088 .020*** −.088 .020***
Female .324 .025*** .324 .025*** .324 .025***
Married .134 .013*** .134 .013*** .134 .013***
Age .010 .001*** .010 .001*** .010 .001***
Age squareda .014 .003*** .014 .003*** .014 .003***
Level-2 variables
Communist −.386 .107*** −.385 .109***
Mean university degree −.987 .586 −1.004 .586
GRI −.032 .035 −.033 .035
Per capita GDP −.010 .003*** −.010 .003***
Mean no religion −.318 .037*** −.325 .038***
Random Effects
Variance components
Level 1 intercept (r) .665 .665 .665
Level 2 intercept (u0 ) .291*** .085*** .085***
University degree slope (u1 ) .030*** .030*** .027***
Deviance 112,193 112,166 112,167
Notes: All independent variables except for level-1 university degree are centered on the overall mean; level-1 university
degree is centered on the group (nation) mean; N = 46,003.
a Coefficient and standard error multiplied by 100.

*p ࣘ .05; **p ࣘ .01; ***p ࣘ .001 (2-tailed test).

robustly negative to positive, is associated with the average level of religiosity in each nation but
not with communism or the average level of education.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

As outlined above, this article has three primary goals. The first goal is to examine the
individual and nation-level effects of higher education on religiosity. The results show that, all else
being equal, respondents with a university degree report relatively low levels of religiosity, which
supports H1. These results comport with the “decline in religion thesis” (Swatos and Christiano
1999) that hypothesizes lower levels of religiosity among the highly educated (Beckwith 1985;
Herbert 2003; Johnson 1997). The negative impact of higher education on religiosity is also
consonant with traditional conceptions of secularization (e.g., Bruce 2002; Dobbelaere 1981;
Wilson 1982). Still, the secularizing influence of higher education should not be exaggerated. In
414 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

the aggregate, sex, marital status, and age5 have considerably larger effects on religiosity than
does higher education.
Contrary to H2, ceteris paribus, the average level of higher education in each nation is not
associated with individual religiosity. Since growth in education is seen as a key indicator of
modernity (Barber 2011; Beckwith 1985; Kurtz 2007), this finding appears to support the “new
paradigm” perspective that modernity is not necessarily associated with religious decline (Finke
and Stark 1992). Per capita GDP, however, has a strong, negative effect on religiosity, which
suggests that a different measure of modernity and national advancement does influence religion.
Moreover, alternative analyses (not shown) demonstrate that average level of higher education
is negatively associated with individual religiosity when per capita GDP is not included in the
model. Per capita GDP appears to fully mediate the association between nation-level education
and individual religiosity.6
The strong, negative effect of per capita GDP on individual religiosity supports traditional
secularization arguments that predict religious decline in advanced, industrialized societies (e.g.,
Bruce 2002; Dobbelaere 1981). In particular, this finding supports Norris and Inglehart’s (2004)
contention that economic development provides existential security that reduces the need for
transcendental religion. As Norris and Inglehart (2004) note, however, GDP may not have a
direct effect on religion, but instead reflect living conditions, such as egalitarianism and access to
healthcare, that promote religious decline. Additional research is needed to test this proposition.
The second goal of this article is to gauge cross-national variation in the association between
higher education and secularity. The results show that the effect of university degree on religiosity
varies considerably across nations, from robustly negative to positive. This finding supports
H3. While in the aggregate individual-level university education is negatively associated with
religiosity, this relationship masks important differences across nations. This finding serves as a
reminder that the social importance attached to religious practice and belief is often culturally
specific (Schwartz 2007; Weber 1948), and it supports the more general finding that the effect of
education on liberal attitudes varies across nations (Weil 1985).
The third goal of this article is to identify moderating factors in the association between
higher education and secularity. The results do not support H4, which is based on Sacerdote
and Glaeser’s (2001) argument that the negative association between education and religiosity
is strongest in communist nations.7 It is important to note, however, that the main effect of
communism shows that living in a communist or formerly communist nation has a strong,
negative effect on religiosity. Thus, the results do support the proposition that secularity is more
common in communist nations (Barber 2011; Fox and Tabory 2008); and the robust, direct effect
of communism may explain differences between the above findings and Sacerdote and Glaeser’s
(2001) analysis.8

5 Forinstance, based on the results from Model 1 in Table 3, all else being equal, a 50-year-old is .169 higher than a
25-year-old on the religiosity scale, while university education is associated with a .068 reduction in the religiosity scale.
6 Thefour requirements of the causal steps approach to mediation, which is the most widely used method of testing for
mediation (MacKinnon, Fairchild, and Fritz 2007), are all met: mean university degree is associated with religiosity (not
shown), mean university degree is associated with GDP (not shown), GDP is associated with religiosity when mean
university degree is in the model (Tables 3 and 4), and the effect of mean university degree on religiosity is reduced or
absent when GDP is in the model (Tables 3 and 4).
7 Alternativemodels of individual religion indicators available in the ISSP (not shown) suggest that the negative effect of
higher education on belief in miracles is more robust in communist and formerly communist nations, which lends some
support to Sacerdote and Glaeser’s (2001) hypothesis. On the other hand, the interaction between higher education and
communism is not meaningful in models of reporting no religious affiliation, self-identification as religious, religious
service attendance, prayer, belief in God, and belief in the afterlife.
8 Thereare several potential explanations for differences between the results in this article and the results from Sacerdote
and Glaeser’s (2001) analysis. First, their models do not include important nation-level controls, most importantly the
EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION ON RELIGIOSITY 415

The above results also provide no support for H5, which proposes that the negative effect of
university education on religiosity is minimized in highly educated nations. While the results do
not support H5, they also do not refute the argument that differences in cultural capital between
the college- and non-college-educated influence the effect of education on religiosity (Wilson
and Sherkat 1994; Wuthnow and Mellinger 1978). Further research is needed to address cross-
national variation in the role of cultural capital, such as incorporating parents’ education (which
is not available in the ISSP) into the models. This type of analysis could address how resources
available in the family of origin affect adult religiosity, how this varies across nations, and how
it influences the association between education and religiosity.
There is strong support for H6, which proposes that the negative effect of higher education
on religiosity is more robust in relatively religious nations. This is evident both from the negative
correlation between the random slope for university degree and the adjusted mean of religiosity
(i.e., intercept), and from the positive interaction between university degree and the mean with no
religion in each nation. These findings appear to support the diffusion argument that the highly
educated are innovators and early adopters (Rogers 2003) of new ways of being religious (or
irreligious) but that secularity then diffuses to the less-educated segments of the population. As
Elias (2000) suggests in regards to attributes associated with the upper classes (e.g., manners),
secularity may be a form of status differentiation for the highly educated in relatively religious
nations, but it cannot serve that function in relatively irreligious nations. This argument is also
consonant with Young and Willmott’s (1973) principle of stratified diffusion, as well as empirical
research that shows the diffusion of new values, particularly liberal values, from the highly
educated to the less educated (e.g., Pampel and Hunter 2012). Additional research is required
to examine if this pattern is due to active emulation of the educated classes (Bourdieu 1984), a
more passive process of diffusion that occurs once secularity reaches a specific threshold (Palloni
2001), or the decline of stigma associated with secularity (Schwadel and Garneau 2014) that
leads to a reduction in status differences in religiosity.
The diffusion argument, however, does not explain why the effect of higher education on
religiosity is positive in more than one-fifth of the nations in the ISSP. This finding may be
influenced by variation in the effect of education across measures of religiosity. While education
negatively affects certain religious beliefs and support for religion influencing government, ed-
ucation often has a positive effect on attendance at religious services (Schwadel 2011). All else
being equal, the disproportionately high levels of organizational involvement among the college
educated (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995) may lead them to also be relatively likely to attend
religious services. Consequently, once social acceptance of secularism has diffused to the less
educated (Schwadel and Garneau 2014), the highly educated can appear more religious due to
their organizational involvement. Indeed, alternative models (not shown) examining each of the
four indicators used to construct the religiosity scale in the above analysis suggest that the positive
effect of education occurs most often in relation to service attendance.9
There are several important limitations to the above analyses. First, the survey respondents are
from predominantly Christian nations. Although the non-Christian nations in the sample did not
unduly influence the results (see Note 1), this may change with a more diverse sample, particularly

direct effect of communism. Second, they also fail to control for key individual-level indicators that strongly influence
religiosity, including both urbanity and sex. Third, they do not test for other potential moderating factors, particularly
the interaction between education and mean no religion. Fourth, they use individual indicators of religiosity instead of a
scale. Fifth, they focus on years of education, standardized within nation, rather than attaining a university degree.
9I examined models identical to Model 1 in Table 3 but with standardized measures of self-identification as religious,
service attendance, prayer, and belief in God as the dependent variables. The results show that university education is
associated with at least a .1 standard deviation increase in religiosity in 2 nations when religious self-identification is the
dependent variable, in 1 nation when belief in God is the dependent variable, in 5 nations when frequency of prayer is
the dependent variable, and in 16 nations when frequency of religious service attendance is the dependent variable.
416 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

since there are generally higher levels of religious practice and belief in majority Muslim nations
(Fox and Tabory 2008). Second, the ISSP data do not contain measures of key mechanisms that
may mediate the association between education and religiosity. It would be beneficial to examine
how cultural capital and diversity of social networks influence the association between education
and religiosity, and how this varies across nations. Third, the theoretical model proposed to
explain H6, wherein secularity diffuses from the highly educated to the less educated, cannot
be causally established with cross-sectional data. It is possible that other, exogenous factors not
included in the models are related to both the average level of religiosity in a nation and the
individual-level association between education and religiosity. Additional research is needed that
focuses on longitudinal changes within nations.
The results in this article illustrate considerable cross-national differences in both the impact
of higher education and the social significance of religiosity. Although there is isomorphism in
the forms of higher education (Meyer et al. 2007), colleges and universities are also purveyors of
national culture (Clark 1983; Levy 2006). Consequently, the cultural implications differ across
nations regarding what it means to be highly educated. In some nations the highly educated are
less religious than other citizens, in other nations they are more religious. This finding extends
previous research that shows that the effect of social class on religiosity varies across contexts
such as religious congregations and regions within a nation (Schwadel, McCarthy, and Nelsen
2009; Stroope 2011). National contexts play a similar moderating role. Not only do national
contexts matter, but the religious makeup of the nation in particular also appears to influence
the association between higher education and religiosity. This finding comports with research on
cross-national variation in the effect of education on moral attitudes more generally, which also
emphasizes the national religious context (e.g., Scheepers, te Grotenhuis, and van der Slik 2002).
As Weber (1948) famously noted, religion (perhaps more than most other social institutions) is
strongly influenced by social context. As the above results demonstrate, individual-level factors
that affect religion are also influenced by the social context.

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