Education Promoted Secularization
CESifo, Munich, 2014
CESifo Working Paper No. 4684
![](https://cesifo.org/DocImg/cesifo1_wp4684.jpg?c=1689237044)
Why did substantial parts of Europe abandon the institutionalized churches around 1900? Empirical studies using modern data mostly contradict the traditional view that education was a leading source of the seismic social phenomenon of secularization. We construct a unique panel dataset of advanced-school enrollment and Protestant church attendance in German cities between 1890 and 1930. Our cross-sectional estimates replicate a positive association. By contrast, in panel models where fixed effects account for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, education – but not income or urbanization – is negatively related to church attendance. In panel models with lagged explanatory variables, educational expansion precedes reduced church attendance.
Economics of Education
Empirical and Theoretical Methods