A new study has found that people tend to be less religious when government provides better social services, such as health care, welfare and education.
Psychology researchers from various American universities have found that religiosity is less pronounced in places where the government provides better services.
"[I]f the function that religiosity provides can be acquired from some other source, the allure of religion will diminish," the researchers noted, according to the Miami Herald.
The study, titled "Religion as an Exchange System: The Interchangeability of God and Government in a Provider Role," was authored by Miron Zuckerman and Chen Li of the University of Rochester and Ed Diener of the Universities of Utah and Virginia.
The authors noted that the validity of the findings apply not just to states across the U.S., but to other countries across the globe as well.
Data from the research was taken from the World Bank, World Fact Book, U.S. Census and Gallup. Government services were measured by analyzing the amount spent by each country or state on health and education. The figures were then compared to data on religion collected from 455,104 people from 155 countries.
The results were adjusted to account for several factors, such as income inequality and differences in the quality of life, to enable the researchers to isolate the relationship between government services and the religiosity of the population.
The findings, which were published on April 12 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, also suggested that there is a staggered link between government services and the level of people's adherence to religion.
The authors pointed to an example in the U.S. between 2008 and 2013, when "better government services in a specific year predicted lower religiosity 1 to 2 years later."
"If a secular entity provides what people need, they will be less likely to seek help from God or other supernatural entities. Government is the most likely secular provider," the researchers noted.
"We showed in two cross-sectional analyses, one using world countries and one using states in the United States, that better government services were related to lower levels of religiosity," they added.
Zuckerman, the lead author of the study, has previously conducted research linking intelligence and religious beliefs. In 2013, he and other Rochester researchers published a paper suggesting that people who are more intelligent tend to be less religious. In an interview with The Verge, Zuckerman pointed out at the time that similar conclusions have been deduced from studies conducted in 1928.
