There has to be something wrong with the data.

[Warren Stupidity]

JUST one extra year of schooling makes someone 10% less likely to attend a church, mosque or temple, pray alone or describe himself as religious, concludes a paper* published on October 6th that looks at the relationship between religiosity and the length of time spent in school. Its uses changes in the compulsory school-leaving age in 11 European countries between 1960 and 1985 to tease out the impact of time spent in school on belief and practice among respondents to the European Social Survey, a long-running research project.

By comparing people of similar backgrounds who were among the first to stay on longer, the authors could be reasonably certain that the extra schooling actually caused religiosity to fall, rather than merely being correlated with the decline. During those extra years mathematics and science classes typically become more rigorous, points out Naci Mocan, one of the authors—and increased exposure to analytical thinking may weaken the tendency to believe.

Another paper, published earlier this year, showed that after Turkey increased compulsory schooling from five years to eight in 1997, women’s propensity to identify themselves as religious, cover their heads or vote for an Islamic party fell by 30-50%. (No effect was found, however, among Turkish men.) And a study published in 2011 that looked at the rise in the school-leaving age in Canadian provinces in the 1950s and 1960s found that each extra year of schooling led to a decline of four percentage points in the likelihood of identifying with a religious tradition. Longer schooling, it reckoned, explains most of the increase in non-affiliation to any religion in Canada between 1971 and 2001, from 4% of the population to 16%

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21623712-how-education-makes-people-less-religiousand-less-superstitious-too-falling-away

[rug]

1. Do you have a link to the report?

After all, the original subhead is "How education makes people less religious—and less superstitious, too". The article doesn't address that.

I would think such frenetic activity after a hidden post surely would provide enough energy to find it.

[Goblinmonger]

2. Ask the author at the Economist.

I'm sure they'd be happy to oblige your request. Then you can share it with all of us.

[rug]

3. Or you can ask the OP to get it.

I'm sure he'd be happy to oblige your request. Then you can share it with all of us.

[Goblinmonger]

5. I don't care about it. So...

But he's just posting an article for discussion. You know, just like you always say.

[rug]

6. Thank you for posting you don't care about it.

One less burning question.

[rogerashton]

4. Here

http://www.nber.org/papers/w20557

One author is from Louisiana State, my Alma Mammy.

Wups, sorry -- the NBER wants you to pay.

[rug]

7. Thanks for the abstract anyway. These reports are too often behind a paywall.

We exploit information on compulsory schooling reforms in 11 European countries, implemented mostly in the 1960s and 70s, to identify the impact of education on religious adherence and religious practices. Using micro data from the European Social Survey, conducted in various years between 2002 and 2013, we find consistently large negative effects of schooling on self-reported religiosity, social religious acts (attending religious services), as well as solitary religious acts (the frequency of praying). We also use data from European Values Survey to apply the same empirical design to analyze the impact of schooling on superstitious beliefs. We find that more education, due to increased mandatory years of schooling, reduces individuals’ propensity to believe in the power of lucky charms and the tendency to take into account horoscopes in daily life.

[Brettongarcia]

10. Thank you Rug for providing this useful information.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Education makes you less stupid. News at 11.

[blkmusclmachine]

11. ,

,

[Cartoonist]

12. Just one year of schooling would do that

if the person wasn't filled with nonsense at the start. It's too bad we can't prevent parents from brainwashing their children with opinions and calling them FACT. Let them make up their own minds as to what is real and what is myth.

Can't really blame the parents too much, they were brainwashed by their parents. Other than atheists, I haven't met anyone whose belief is different from their mom and dad. (not that I've done a study on it)

[rug]

13. It's too bad we can't prevent people from spreading their predigested opinions and calling them fact

[mr blur]

14. In other news, Rain Will Make You Wet,

etc.

[gcomeau]

15. Sky blue! Fire hot!

[Iggo]

16. Water wet! Bacon delicious!