The Poorest Nation’s on Earth Also Tend to be the Most Religious
August 31st, 2010There is a correlation between religion and poverty, and in countries with more wealth, religion is considered important on average by less than half the population, according to Gallup’s latest poll on the subject.
Religiosity is strongly related to per-capita income worldwide. In the poorest countries 95 percent of adults say religion is an important part of their daily lives, compared with only 47 percent who say the same in the world’s richest countries.
Gallup surveys in 114 countries in 2009 show that religion continues to play an important role in many people’s lives worldwide. The global median proportion of adults who say religion is an important part of their daily lives is 84 percent, unchanged from what Gallup has found in other years. In 10 countries and areas, at least 98 percent say religion is important in their daily lives.
Each of the most religious countries is relatively poor, with a per-capita GDP below $5,000. This reflects the strong relationship between a country’s socioeconomic status and the religiosity of its residents.
The United States is one of the few rich countries that bucks the trend. About two-thirds of Americans — 65 percent — say religion is important in their daily lives. Among high-income countries, only Italians, Greeks, Singaporeans, and residents of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states are more likely to say religion is important.
Most high-income countries are further down the religiosity spectrum. In 10 countries, no more than 34 percent of residents say religion is an important part of their daily lives. Six of those are developed countries in Europe and Asia with per-capita incomes greater than $25,000.
In three of the four lower income countries on the list — Estonia, Russia, and Belarus — the Soviet government restricted religious expression for decades until the U.S.S.R.’s collapse in 1991. The final country is Vietnam, where the government also has a history of limiting religious practice.
Implications
Social scientists have put forth numerous possible explanations for the relationship between the religiosity of a population and its average income level. One theory is that religion plays a more functional role in the world’s poorest countries, helping many residents cope with a daily struggle to provide for themselves and their families. A previous Gallup analysis supports this idea, revealing that the relationship between religiosity and emotional well-being is stronger among poor countries than among those in the developed world.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews conducted in 2009 with approximately 1,000 adults in each country. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error ranges from plus or minus 5.3 percentage points in Lithuania to plus or minus 2.6 percentage points in India. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
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Tags: Gallup Poll, Poverty, Religiosity, The Poorest Nation's on Earth Also Tend to be the Most Religious, Wealth
August 31st, 2010 at 2:55 pm
It’s sort of misleading to add the Gulf states into the “developed countries” list. Several of them, such as Kuwait, essentially pay all their citizens a generous annual stipend, equal to average incomes in developed countries; the stipends come from oil revenues and do not reflect productive activity on the part of their nationals.
The Gulf states are, in any number of ways, socially and culturally in a different time, and that, together with state largess from oil revenues, helps explain the phenomenon of “highly developed” country with “high religiosity.”
The historical pattern, from the Age of Enlightenment on, that helped to produce lower religiosity in Western countries did not happen in the Gulf, although there are nascent signs that some societies there could be moving in that direction.
Naturally, that phenomenon is based mainly among better-educated young people who have studied in the West. It is also true that that same group has provided many of the suicide bombers and other terrorists.
Will continuing organized violence, based in religious difference, be the hallmark of this century? At this point, early on in the 2000s, it seems likely. It will take the best efforts of people of good will and humanism, whatever religion they profess, to make sure this does not happen, and to establish worldwide the notion that an individual’s choice (or non-choice) of religion should not be politicized and made a basis for violence, terror, discrimination or repression of any kind.
So long as there exist influential elements in any major religion that seek to reshape entire countries or perhaps even the world into some sort of preconceived medieval religious utopia, that humanistic resolution will elude us.
August 31st, 2010 at 3:23 pm
No where in this post are the Gulf States mentioned, but I was just thinking about how the states and the South would break out in this equation. There’s little doubt the math and stats would draw the same conclusion about the South. More religious, and poorer for it…
August 31st, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Quoting the story, “Among high-income countries, only Italians, Greeks, Singaporeans, and residents of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states are more likely to say religion is important.”
I may have been unclear, because I meant the “oil-rich Persian Gulf states” in my previous post. Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, etc.
August 31st, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Guess I just have some other “Gulf states” in mind, at the moment : )