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Increase or Decrease? The Impact of the International Migratory Event on Immigrant Religious Participation
Author(s) -
CONNOR PHILLIP
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal for the scientific study of religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1468-5906
pISSN - 0021-8294
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2008.00405.x
Subject(s) - immigration , religiosity , demographic economics , event (particle physics) , sociology , work (physics) , political science , social psychology , psychology , economics , law , engineering , physics , quantum mechanics , mechanical engineering
Immigrant religiosity has recently become a hot topic both in academia and in the public arena. For years, a debate has existed as to whether there is an increase or decrease of immigrant religious participation surrounding the migratory event. Some argue that the act of migration spurs an increase in immigrant religious participation, while others contend that migration is a disruptive event and decreases immigrant religious participation. In addition to contextual factors, a number of micro‐level factors may explain this change in religious participation: sex, family composition, religious affiliation, and employment status. This article uses longitudinal data from Quebec, Canada surveying nearly 1,000 immigrants during the 1990s. Results indicate that immigrant religious participation decreases substantially as compared to the average level of religious participation among the same immigrants prior to their migration. Besides religious affiliation, most of the micro‐level factors hypothesized to explain this change in religious participation prove statistically insignificant. The lack of significant results for micro‐level factors points to environmental factors that may be at work.