Abstract summary 

Previous studies have suggested a positive relationship between secularization and happiness, as well as a geographical, cultural and development pattern, primarily based on data gathered in Europe and the USA. To gain a more holistic view on the interrelationships between secularization, religiosity and subjective perception of well-being, this study utilized the Wave 6 archival data set (2010-2014) of World Values Survey, which contains 74,042 observations from 60 countries. In this study, the rating of satisfaction with life was treated as the dependent variable. Four secular value indices and 12 variables related to religiosity were extracted from the data set for predictive analysis. Data mining tools, such as the partition tree and bootstrap forest approaches, suggested that only secular values were influential. Specifically, secular values had a negative relationship with satisfaction. In addition, hierarchical clustering based on secularization and satisfaction did not suggest a meaningful pattern. For example, the dendrogram showed that South Korea, Lebanon, Estonia and Algeria were grouped together. This implies that secularization and satisfaction could vary from country to country, regardless of their geographical location, culture and development status. Specifically, countries that are similar in terms of satisfaction and secularization are not necessarily culturally similar or geographically clustered. This discourages the idea that these factors (e.g., location, development status, culture) play a role in mediating the relationship between secularization and religiosity. By directly contradicting previous work showing a pattern based on Europe and the USA, this finding challenges the existing understanding of the relationship between these factors. By expanding the scope of study to the whole world, the current analysis suggested that the existing view regarding the positive relationship between secularization and well-being might be oversimplified.

Authors & Co-authors:  Yu Chong Ho CH Trier Hailey H Slama Maryann M

Study Outcome 

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