Does economic development cause a decline in religiosity?
Raphaël Franck Bar Ilan University This paper provides a test of the secularization hypothesis, which argues that economic development leads to a decline in religiosity, by focusing on the support for the separation of Church and State in France. It examines whether the representatives who supported the separation in the lower house of Parliament on 3 July 1905 were indeed returned in the most developed areas of France. Our results provide scant evidence for the secularization hypothesis. Rather, they seem to indicate that the decline in faith originated in the most rural areas of the countries, where the teachings of the Church were progressively rejected. Keywords: Economic Growth; Elections; Religion; Secularization.
