Faith in Times of Crisis: Religiosity and Well-being During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sammanfattning

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity for social gatherings was greatly limited in large parts of Europe, which created a unique possibility to investigate whether religiosity affects well-being and, if so, where the well-being effects of religion come from. This study aims to examine whether religious affiliation can work as a psychological buffer for well-being when social capital becomes limited by utilising the restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from round 9 and 10 from the European Social Survey (ESS), including 25 countries, combined with a modified Oxford Stringency Index (OSI) measuring social restrictions, was used. Well-being was measured as a mean index of happiness and life satisfaction. Religiosity was divided into four groups: non-believers, weakly, moderately and strongly religious. Missing data were handled through multiple imputation using the MICE algorithm. The primary analysis was conducted using a weighted linear regression with country fixed effects, complemented with a partial proportional odds model and a logistic regression as sensitivity analyses. The results show that strongly religious individuals consistently report higher levels of well-being, both before and during the pandemic. Furthermore, the well-being difference between non-believers and strongly religious individuals increased during round 10, indicating that religion offered a general buffer during the pandemic. However, there was no significant interaction between religiosity and social restrictions, indicating that religion did not specifically mitigate the negative effects of reduced social contact.