1 Introduction
2 Purpose and research strategy
3 Building the harmonized dataset
3.1 The selection of studies
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Eurobarometer (https://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/),
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European Social Survey (ESS), (https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/),
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European Values Study (EVS), (https://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/),
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International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) (https://www.issp.org/),
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World Values Survey (WVS) (https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/).
3.2 The studies’ specifications
Years | EB | ESS | ISSP | EVS | WVS | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1973 | 9 | 9 | ||||
1975 | 10 | 10 | ||||
1976 | 20 | 20 | ||||
1977 | 20 | 20 | ||||
1978 | 20 | 20 | ||||
1980 | 10 | 10 | ||||
1981 | 11 | 10 | 21 | |||
1982 | 2 | 2 | ||||
1983 | 1 | 1 | ||||
1984 | 1 | 1 | ||||
1985 | 11 | 2 | 13 | |||
1986 | 5 | 5 | ||||
1987 | 5 | 5 | ||||
1988 | 13 | 4 | 17 | |||
1989 | 38 | 9 | 1 | 48 | ||
1990 | 42 | 7 | 19 | 4 | 72 | |
1991 | 54 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 69 | |
1992 | 48 | 8 | 1 | 57 | ||
1993 | 31 | 15 | 1 | 47 | ||
1994 | 44 | 18 | 62 | |||
1995 | 17 | 16 | 3 | 36 | ||
1996 | 13 | 13 | 26 | |||
1997 | 18 | 5 | 23 | |||
1998 | 17 | 21 | 6 | 44 | ||
1999 | 17 | 31 | 48 | |||
2000 | 13 | 16 | 2 | 1 | 32 | |
2001 | 13 | 17 | 4 | 34 | ||
2002 | 26 | 15 | 23 | 2 | 66 | |
2003 | 78 | 8 | 19 | 105 | ||
2004 | 18 | 20 | 38 | |||
2005 | 98 | 8 | 18 | 7 | 131 | |
2006 | 123 | 21 | 16 | 9 | 169 | |
2007 | 5 | 13 | 3 | 21 | ||
2008 | 18 | 24 | 39 | 81 | ||
2009 | 9 | 23 | 6 | 2 | 40 | |
2010 | 34 | 16 | 20 | 70 | ||
2011 | 12 | 15 | 8 | 35 | ||
2012 | 18 | 18 | 3 | 39 | ||
2013 | 10 | 29 | 2 | 41 | ||
2014 | 15 | 20 | 1 | 36 | ||
2015 | 7 | 23 | 30 | |||
2016 | 11 | 11 | ||||
Total | 800 | 180 | 492 | 118 | 75 | 1,665 |
(%) | 48.0 | 10.8 | 29.5 | 7.1 | 4.5 | 100.0 |
Mean sample size | 805 | 1453 | 1137 | 1152 | 1104 | 1011 |
Countries | EB | ESS | ISSP | EVS | WVS | Total | Time coverage | Mean sample size |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Albania | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1991–2008 | 1075 |
Armenia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1992–1992 | 856 |
Austria | 10 | 4 | 17 | 3 | 0 | 34 | 1986–2016 | 1112 |
Belarus | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 1990–2011 | 1269 |
Belgium | 38 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 50 | 1973–2014 | 1068 |
Belgium-Brussels | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2013–2015 | 503 |
Belgium-Flanders | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 2002–2015 | 1043 |
Belgium-Wallonia | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2013–2015 | 557 |
Bosnia Herzegovina | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2001–2008 | 1293 |
Bulgaria | 19 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 37 | 1991–2013 | 987 |
Croatia | 7 | 2 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 19 | 1996–2016 | 995 |
Cyprus | 18 | 4 | 11 | 1 | 2 | 36 | 1996–2012 | 689 |
Czech Republic | 20 | 6 | 23 | 3 | 2 | 54 | 1991–2015 | 1188 |
Denmark | 38 | 7 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 64 | 1973–2014 | 1023 |
Estonia | 20 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 33 | 1991–2015 | 994 |
Finland | 10 | 7 | 15 | 3 | 2 | 37 | 1990–2015 | 1126 |
France | 38 | 7 | 19 | 4 | 1 | 69 | 1973–2015 | 1194 |
Georgia | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 1992–2016 | 1300 |
Germany East | 22 | 7 | 26 | 3 | 3 | 61 | 1990–2016 | 758 |
Germany West | 38 | 7 | 31 | 4 | 3 | 83 | 1973–2016 | 1086 |
Great Britain | 38 | 7 | 30 | 4 | 1 | 80 | 1973–2014 | 1010 |
Greece | 29 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 35 | 1981–2011 | 1026 |
Hungary | 21 | 7 | 25 | 3 | 2 | 58 | 1986–2015 | 986 |
Iceland | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 13 | 1984–2016 | 794 |
Ireland | 38 | 7 | 13 | 4 | 0 | 62 | 1973–2014 | 1019 |
Italy | 38 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 56 | 1973–2013 | 1000 |
Kosovo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2008–2008 | 1559 |
Latvia | 20 | 0 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 38 | 1990–2016 | 949 |
Lithuania | 20 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 33 | 1991–2015 | 960 |
Luxembourg | 38 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 42 | 1973–2010 | 454 |
Macedonia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1992–2008 | 1076 |
Malta | 18 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 22 | 1983–2010 | 467 |
Moldova | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1992–2008 | 1027 |
Montenegro | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1996–2008 | 895 |
Netherlands | 38 | 7 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 69 | 1973–2014 | 1149 |
Northern Cyprus | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 2005–2008 | 464 |
Northern Ireland | 36 | 7 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 58 | 1975–2014 | 344 |
Norway | 10 | 7 | 25 | 3 | 2 | 47 | 1982–2015 | 1239 |
Poland | 20 | 7 | 18 | 3 | 3 | 51 | 1987–2015 | 1156 |
Portugal | 27 | 7 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 47 | 1988–2015 | 1007 |
Romania | 19 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 25 | 1991–2012 | 965 |
Russian Federation | 2 | 4 | 19 | 2 | 4 | 31 | 1990–2015 | 1640 |
Serbia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1996–2008 | 1221 |
Slovak Republic | 20 | 5 | 13 | 3 | 2 | 43 | 1990–2016 | 1011 |
Slovenia | 19 | 7 | 15 | 3 | 3 | 47 | 1992–2015 | 942 |
Spain | 27 | 7 | 20 | 4 | 5 | 63 | 1981–2016 | 1231 |
Sweden | 10 | 7 | 21 | 4 | 3 | 45 | 1982–2016 | 1078 |
Switzerland | 2 | 7 | 14 | 1 | 3 | 27 | 1987–2015 | 1161 |
Turkey | 17 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 2000–2015 | 1064 |
Ukraine | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 1992–2013 | 1564 |
Total | 800 | 180 | 492 | 118 | 75 | 1665 | 1973–2016 | 1011 |
3.3 Harmonization procedures
Wording of response options | Eurobarometer (mannheim trend file + candidate countries) | Eurobarometer (central and eastern countries) | Eurobarometer (2005–2010) | ESS | EVS/WVS | ISSP 1985 | ISSP 1986–1987 | ISSP 1988–2000 | ISSP 2001–2016 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Every day | 0.99 | ||||||||
Several times a week + everyday | 0.99 | ||||||||
Several times a week | 0.99 | 0.99 | |||||||
More than once a week | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.99 | ||||||
Once a week or more | 0.99 | ||||||||
Once a week | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.99 | |
Two–three times a month | 0.58 | 0.58 | |||||||
Once to three times a month | 0.50 | 0.50 | |||||||
At least once a month | 0.23 | ||||||||
Once a month | 0.23 | 0.23 | 0.23 | ||||||
About once a month | 0.23 | ||||||||
Several times a year | 0.12 | 0.12 | 0.12 | 0.12 | 0.12 | ||||
Few times a year | 0.12 | ||||||||
About every 2 or 3 months | 0.10 | ||||||||
Twice a year, once a year | 0.03 | ||||||||
Only on special holy days | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 | ||||||
Other specific holy days | 0.03 | ||||||||
Once a year | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.02 | |||||
About once a year | 0.02 | ||||||||
Less frequently | 0.03 | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.01 | |||||
Less often | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 | ||||||
Rarely | 0.01 | ||||||||
Never | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
4 Reliability checks
Variance partition, 4 levels | Fixed effects, 3 levels | Random slopes, 3 levels | |
---|---|---|---|
Fixed part | |||
Constant | 0.240*** | 0.234*** | 0.246*** |
ESS (ref: EB) | – | 0.010*** | − 0.015*** |
EVS/WVS (ref:EB) | – | − 0.001 | − 0.014* |
ISSP (ref: EB) | – | 0.017*** | − 0.003 |
Random part | |||
Country | |||
variance(cons) | 0.030*** | 0.030*** | 0.029*** |
Country-year | |||
variance(cons) | 0.002*** | 0.004*** | 0.005*** |
variance(ESS) | – | – | 0.002*** |
variance(EVS/WVS) | – | – | 0.004*** |
variance(ISSP) | – | – | 0.004*** |
Study-country-year | |||
variance(cons) | 0.001*** | – | – |
Individual | |||
variance(cons) | 0.108*** | 0.108*** | 0.108*** |
variance (total) | 0.141 | 0.142 | 0.161 |
VPC (individual) | 76.596 | 76.056 | 67.081 |
VPC (study-country-year) | 0.709 | – | – |
VPC (country-year) | 1.418 | 2.817 | 14.907 |
VPC (country) | 21.277 | 21.127 | 18.012 |
Statistics | |||
N | 1,885,921 | 1,885,921 | 1,885,921 |
Ll | − 578,394 | − 579,870 | − 578,320 |
5 Possible research applications
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Providing long-term country trends in religious change for individual countries.
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Comparing and grouping church attendance and religious change trends.
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Building country and country-year level figures to be used as contextual measures in multilevel models.
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Disentangling the effects of cohort replacement and period succession in explaining religious change.
5.1 A group-based trajectory model for clustering European countries
Intercept | Year | Year2 | Year3 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Group 1: Low and increasing | 0.12 | − 0.0031 | 0.00014 | |
Group 2: Low and stable | 0.08 | − 0.0003 | 0.00001 | |
Group 3: Low and slowly declining | 0.19 | − 0.0017 | ||
Group 4: Average and rapidly declining | 0.33 | − 0.0072 | 0.00006 | |
Group 5: High and rapidly declining | 0.46 | − 0.0501 | 0.00042 | − .00001 |
Group 6: High and slowly declining | 0.41 | 0.0001 | − 0.00006 | |
Group 7: Very high and rapidly declining | 0.92 | − 0.0107 | 0.00001 |
5.2 A cross-classified model to disentangle period and cohort effects on religious change
M1 (Year-cohort-country) | M2 (M1 + Interactions) | M3 (M2 + Age) | |
---|---|---|---|
Constant | 0.24 | 0.25 | 0.23 |
Age 30–59 (ref: < 30) | – | – | − 0.00 |
Age 60–100 (ref: < 30) | – | – | 0.02 |
VPC individual | 72.93 | 65.11 | 65.03 |
VCP cohort | 4.51 | 9.15 | 7.52 |
VPC year | 0.34 | 0.67 | 0.54 |
VPC country | 22.21 | 22.42 | 24.24 |
VPC cohort * country | – | 1.80 | 1.82 |
VCP year * country | – | 0.86 | 0.85 |
VPC TOTAL | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 |
N | 1,718,770 | 1,718,770 | 1,718,770 |