Background Religion is widely known to affect the acceptance of modern contraception among people, thus affecting their reproductive behavioural outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. The significance of religion on the use of contraceptives has been currently neglected in SSA. Fertility transitions have been widely attributed to the increased use of contraceptives among women worldwide. Given that religion plays an important role in post-colonial Kenya, this study examined the differentials in contraceptive use by religious affiliation as well as the demographic and socio-economic factors that affect the use of contraceptives in Kenya. Methodology The study obtained data from the Kenyan Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS, 2008-2009) that uses a national cross sectional study design. The study population was women of reproductive ages (15-49 years) who were sexually active and the sample size was 4, 207. This study made use of descriptive statistics, chi-square tests and logistic regression. Results Religious affiliation is a significant predictor of contraceptive use in Kenya. Muslims were 51% less likely to use modern methods of contraceptives compared to Christians. There was no significant difference in the use of contraceptives among Roman Catholics and Protestants. Demographic and socio-economic factors - specifically age, education, number of living children, fertility intention, wealth and marital status - were significantly associated with the use of modern methods of contraceptives. Conclusion Religious affiliation affects the use of contraceptives and plays a vital role in the reproductive behaviours of women in Kenya. The low levels of contraceptive use among Muslims are accounted for by their low socio-economic characteristics in addition to Islam’s pro-natal doctrine. The lack of contraceptive use differentials among Roman Catholics and Protestants is as a result of their similar socio-economic characteristics, regardless of Roman Catholics pro-natal doctrine. Thus, a frontier for further study is to examine how religious involvement affects contraceptive use in addition to religious affiliation.

This study was designed to explore maintenance strategies used by religiously affiliated married couples, links between religion and marital quality, and whether maintenance strategies serve a mediating pathway between religion and marital quality. The study included 80 married participants recruited from university courses. Most participants were Caucasian and identified as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Fetzer's religiosity survey assessed various dimensions of religious activity and belief. Marital quality was assessed via measures of commitment and conflict, and marital maintenance strategies included both cognitive and behavioral efforts to remain connected and positive with the spouse. Overall, the sample was highly religious and reported high levels of commitment to their marriages. Strong relationships were observed between religious variables and marital quality, and both religious variables and marital quality demonstrated some relationships with marital maintenance strategies. However, links between religiosity and martial quality were not mediated by the use of specific marital maintenance strategies.

The period between 1966 and 1996 was a period of great change for society in Australia. Two particular aspects of that change have been highlighted in this study. It will examine the changing patterns of attendance at religious services and religious affiliation over this time period. In particular it examines the connection of attendance and belief patterns, which have changed during this period, with particular reference to Christian religious groups. ¶ By examining data from each of the Censuses in the period between 1966 and 1996 it was possible to note three fundamental changes in the patterns of religious affiliation. The first was the movement away from patterns of Christian affiliation to no religious affiliation. The second was the shift of migration patterns which drew substantially from Europe in the period prior to 1971 to a pattern with higher levels of migration from Asia and Oceania. The third saw a decline in Christian affiliation among the 15-24 age group. ¶ After analysing this affiliation data a weekly average religious attendance measure was composed to compare data from each of the social science surveys. This made it possible to examine generational trends by age and sex which resulted from changing patterns of affiliation, immigration, stability of residence and marital status Also a case study of the Canberra parishes in the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn was undertaken to examine the particular impact that these changes had on a particular religious grouping. ¶ In studying these indicators it is believed that the change in patterns of Australian religious attendance and affiliation while influenced by life course events has also been substantially affected by issues of generational change. These changes not only produce lower levels of religious attendance but also have significant impact on aspects of society which have sustained communal life.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of religious affiliation to the authoritarianism and open-closed mindedness of students at two institutions of higher learning, controlling for sex, re ported church attendance, state in which the person reported residence as a child, and city size of reported childhood residency. The sample for this study was selected from junior and senior students at Utah State University (n=l,409) and Weber State College (n=837). The subjects for whom data were analyzed indicated affiliation with the following religious groups: Agnostic, Baptist, Catholic, Christian, Episcopalian, Jewish, Lutheran, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Methodist, Presbyterian, Protestant, and Other. Low and Shaver (1971) had administered to each subject the California F Scale and the 40-item Dogmatism Scale to obtain quantitate estimates of authoritarianism and dogmatism. Demographic information such as sex, frequency of church attendance, state of childhood residency, and city size of childhood residency, was also obtained from each subject . The Low-Shaver data were reanalyzed to make more sensitive tests of the relationship of sex, frequency of church attendance, the state in which the person resided as a child, and city size of childhood residency to stated religious affiliation and to F and D Scale mean scores. Several significant differences were obtained. The factor of religion was significant for both the D and f Scale with the subjects indicating affiliation with the fundamentalist religions receiving higher scores than those affiliated with less fundamental religions. The effect of sex was significant--males scoring higher than females on both scales . The religion by sex interaction was significant on both the D and F Scales, due large ly to the differing direction of mean differences of subjects indicating Jewish preference. This finding was interpreted with caution due to the small sample drawn primarily from Utah. A significant curvilinear relation was obtained between church attendance and both the 0 and F Scale means, with those indicating frequent church attendance receiving higher D and F Scale scores. The main effect of city size of childhood residency was significant on both the D and F Scales 1 with subjects com ing from smaller communities receiving higher mean 0 and F Scale Rcores.

Background: People who are religiously unaffiliated (including self-identifying atheists and agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is "nothing in particular") made up 16.4% of the world's population in 2010. Unaffiliated populations have been growing in North America and Europe, leading some to expect that this group will grow as a share of the world's population. However, such forecasts overlook the impact of demographic factors, such as fertility and the large, aging unaffiliated population in Asia. Objective: We project the future size of religiously affiliated and unaffiliated populations around the world. Methods: We use multistate cohort-component methods to project the size of religiously affiliated and unaffiliated populations. Projection inputs such as religious composition, differential fertility, and age structure data, as well as religious switching patterns, are based on the best available census and survey data for each country. This research is based on an analysis of more than 2,500 data sources. Results: Taking demographic factors into account, we project that the unaffiliated will make up 13.2% of the world's population in 2050. The median age of religiously affiliated women is six years younger than unaffiliated women. The 2010-15 Total Fertility Rate for those with a religious affiliation is 2.59 children per woman, nearly a full child higher than the rate for the unaffiliated (1.65 children per woman). Conclusions: The religiously unaffiliated are projected to decline as a share of the world's population in the decades ahead because their net growth through religious switching will be more than offset by higher childbearing among the younger affiliated population.

The two main theories of religious change are the secularization paradigm and the economic model of religion. The secularization paradigm’s main premise is that modernization weakens the power and authority of the church as an institution and reduces the importance of religion in the daily lives of the population. This paradigm applies well to Europe, but the United States acts as a powerful counter-example. Since the 1940s, religious attendance in the United States has remained generally stable, with approximately 40% of the population claiming to attend religious services, mostly in Christian churches, at least once a week. American sociologists explain this relative vitality with reference to an open and competitive religious marketplace, claiming that the innate desire for spirituality is met by the sheer diversity of religious groups in the United States. This economic model of religion applies poorly to the European situation. This thesis examines these apparent contradictions by considering the similarities and differences between the dynamics of religious change in five western countries since the 1970s or 1980s; the countries are Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. The key question is which combination of dynamics is responsible for religious change in western countries. The effects of migration and fertility aside, all population change must be related to some combination of age, period or cohort effects; age effects are those that occur as people age, period effects are those that affect the whole population regardless of age, and cohort effects are often attributed to circumstances or events during youth. These different dynamics of religious change would each indicate different sources of religious change at the individual level, which may lend support to one theory of religious change over another. I show that there is overwhelming evidence that most religious change in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada is due to differences between generations in the time periods observed with some slight downward period effects. The main drivers of change in the United States are either downward cohort with upward period effects, upward age effects, or a combination of these three effects. I conclude that the changing conditions of socialization in youth, both formal and informal, related to modernization and cultural shifts can explain the dynamics in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Similar effects in the United States may be counteracted by the high social desirability of religion in that country by contrast with the other countries and the ability of particularly conservative Protestants in the United States to isolate themselves from views that conflict with their own; these groups are aided in this by numerical strength and by the ability to socialize, work and view media all of which enhance their religious worldview.

In this study, I analyze the relationship between sexual permissiveness and affiliation with a fundamentalist religion and how this relationship has changed over time. I first consider previous research that reviews how religious affiliation, religiosity, and religious fundamentalism shapes sex attitudes and, therefore sexual permissiveness. I then review existing studies that discuss what factors influence permissiveness toward different sexual behaviors. Next, I discuss the mechanisms of religious institutions that influence sexual permissiveness. Prior literature motivates my research question as there is a lack of studies that explore sexual permissiveness across religious affiliations. This study fills a void in the existing literature by exploring the gap in sexual permissiveness between religious affiliations and how that gap has changed over time. After considering the current literature, I introduce a hypothesis exploring the relationship between sexual permissiveness and affiliation with fundamentalist religion. This study performs OLS regression using secondary data from the General Social Survey (GSS) that describes respondents' religiosity, religious affiliation, and attitudes towards sex. The study's findings show that affiliation with more fundamentalist groups is significantly correlated with more conservative sex attitudes reflecting lower levels of sexual permissiveness. The results also suggest that the gap in sexual permissiveness between those that affiliate with liberal, moderate, and fundamentalist religions has become larger over time.

How do predominantly religious rural communities influence members who are not associated with the dominant religion? Does disassociation with the majority religious affiliation impact community desirability? Current community literature has shown that religious affiliation identification can influence community sentiment (Jennings and Krannich 2013; Kan and Kim 1981; Stinner, Van Loon, Chung, and Byun 1990; Mattarita-Cascante, Stedman, and Luloff 2010) while other studies suggest the possibility of either mixed or inconclusive results (Adams 1992; Andrews 2011; Flagg and Painter II 2019; Reitz, Banerjee, Phan, and Thompson 2009). Using data from the Rural Utah Community Study in 2017, the current study will examine the association between religious affiliation and community desirability in a unique setting. I find that even when accounting for length of residence, age, and the perception of local services, religious affiliation continues to be associated with community desirability. These findings have potential implications for other communities with a majority religion.

Religious belief and attendance predict improved well-being at the individual level. Paradoxically, geographic locations with high rates of religious belief and attendance are often those with the differentially high rates of societal instability and suffering. Many of the consequences of religiosity are context-based and vary across time, and holy days are naturally-occurring religious cues that have been shown to influence religiously-relevant attitudes and behaviors. I investigated the degree to which personal religiosity and religious geography (i.e. religious demographics with other location variables) individually and interactively predict well-being across days of the week. In the first study, American Christians demonstrated greater well-being by expressing more positive sentiment in Twitter posts, while American Muslims displayed less well-being. Sundays were generally the most positive day, but American Muslims communicated more happiness on Fridays (the Muslim holy day). In the second study, Christianity did not predict increased well-being in the posts of college students. In the third study, global survey data with measures of religiosity and well-being indicated that the well-being consequences of religious affiliation depend on the religious group and location, and that people tend to be especially positive on their group’s holy day. Study four explored the latent topical content of Twitter posts. Across studies, religious minority status appeared to have a deleterious effect on well-being.

Three scenarios regarding a target man's moral behavior were used to examine 'religious halo' 'religious boomerang', and a 'halo recovery' effect. Initially, participants rated a male target in response to his religious affiliation. Secondly, participants rated the male target following an act of infidelity. Finally, participants provided ratings of the male target with the knowledge that the target received forgiveness from significant others. Results indicated that participants did not discriminate based on knowledge of the target's religious affiliation but did reject the target following an act of infidelity. New to this research, however, was discovery of a 'halo recovery' where participants were again accepting of a target following forgiveness from his wife and church leaders. These results varied from previous findings that suggested that participants' religious affiliation primarily influenced judgments of moral behavior.