Religious change of new immigrants in the Netherlands: The event of migration

Abstract

Using data on recently arrived immigrants in the Netherlands, I study the role of migration in religious attendance and praying. For the majority of immigrants, the frequency of religious attendance and praying remains the same after migration, but a substantial group shows religious decline. I observe this drop of religiousness for both attendance and praying, but the drop is much more pronounced for attendance. Whereas 40% participate less often in Holland than before migrating, frequency of praying dropped among 17% only. The degree of religious continuity and decline differs dramatically across immigrant groups. Conditional upon pre-migration religiousness, I find that the “older”, well-established and numerically larger migrant groups of Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese and Antilleans more frequently attend religious meetings and pray than the “new” and smaller groups of Poles and Bulgarians. Religious continuity and decline seem less dependent on individual experiences.