Why should government welfare mean less religion?:
This was a question that Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde tackled by in 2004. They analysed the data from a range of countries, and found that the greater proportion of GDP that was spent on government welfare, the more non-religious people there were and the lower church attendance was. This held true even after statistically adjusting for other factors, like per-capita GDP, urbanization, government regulation of religion, and religious pluralism.
The standard explanation for this relation is that religion & government provide competing services, welfare. As government expands it presumably "crowds out" civil society welfare services, of which religious institutions are generally the most prominent. The author of the blog post above is generally skeptical of this model. I personally think it's plausible, but the "rational choice" framework which it emerges from has generally been found wanting in many circumstances (e.g., general failure to explain religious dynamics in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism). So more exploration of the topic is needed. But I was wondering, how about checking to see if there's a relationship between religion & welfare in the United States? I found per capital welfare spending by state, percentage with "No Religion" from The American Religious Identification Survey, and queried how important religion was and what percentage were atheists from the Pew Religious Landscape Survey. I didn't adjust welfare spending for background variables (cost of living, age structure, etc.), but I thought it would be instructive as a "quick & dirty" exploratory exercise. Charts below.
I didn't put any trendlines because there really weren't any trends. Perhaps cost of living has to be taken into account and such. But I think it is important to note that quite a few high welfare states are actually not very secular, especially in the Midwest and Northeast, while several very low welfare states in the West are very secular. New Hampshire and Vermont are basically the same religiously, but their welfare spending profiles differ, with liberal Vermont being among the top spenders and moderate New Hampshire being in the middle of the pack. If 1 = the lowest per capita spending on welfare, New Hampshire is 1.56 and Vermont is 2.51. Maine, which seems marginally a bit more religious than these two states actually spends more per capita on welfare than Vermont. Raw Data:
State% No Religion% Atheist% Who Say Religion “Very Important”Per Capita Welfare Spending
Nevada20650718
Colorado21844738
Texas11267866
Georgia12268907
Montana17447911
Utah17366924
Virginia12559951
South Dakota8556957
Michigan16554980
Arizona17651983
Florida12657992
Idaho19558999
Indiana163601023
Missouri153591027
Kansas154611030
Illinois154531048
Oregon219461048
Washington257481048
Louisiana92731064
South Carolina73701105
North Carolina102691111
New Hampshire179361119
Alabama61741120
Nebraska91611132
Oklahoma142691137
Wyoming204471137
North Dakota35561146
Maryland146561159
Iowa136511184
Arkansas132741225
California197481225
Tennessee92721257
Mississipi71821289
West Virginia133601291
Wisconsin144471296
Connecticut129441323
Kentucky131671351
New Jersey156521426
Ohio154551450
Delaware175551455
New Mexico185531466
Pennsylvania124541628
Minnesota143521776
Massachusetts138441779
Vermont229361799
Maine168421889
Rhode Island156442014
New York137462236
