Religion and Fertility: A Longitudinal Register Study Examining Differences by Sex, Parity, Partner’s Religion, and Religious Conversion in Finland

We use longitudinal data on religious affiliation in Finland to examine childbearing behavior. All analyses are based on detailed fertility information from the Finnish national register of each person’s religious denomination for men and women born in 1956–1975. We identify higher fertility according to parity among members of the Evangelical Lutheran state church and other Protestant churches, and lower fertility among individuals with no religious affiliation. Most other religious groups—Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and adherents of Eastern religions—have intermediate levels of fertility. We also find that religious converts, that is, those observed with more than one religious denomination over their life course, typically are similar to the non-converts of the group they convert to, though with more distinct deviations from the Finnish population. Women show larger differences by religious affiliation than men. We find the largest differences across religions when we examine the proportion of childless men and women. Overall, differences between religious groups are rather modest, and childbearing patterns are quite similar. Our results provide, to our knowledge, the first examination of religion and fertility using national-level longitudinal data.