DiSEGIM, University of Napoli Parthenope, Naples, Italy.
Center for Economic Studies - CESifo, Munich, Germany.
J Relig Health. 2023 Apr;62(2):1358-1372. doi: 10.1007/s10943-023-01755-1. Epub 2023 Feb 8.
By changing many aspects of everyday life, the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distance policies implemented to face it have affected the behaviour of people all over the world. Has the pandemic also affected people's approach towards the divine? Previous evidence suggests that prayer searches on the Internet rose during the pandemic and that people tend to rely mainly on intrinsic rather than extrinsic religiousness to cope with adversity. In the present contribution, using a set of panel random effect estimators, we compare the change in religious attendance in Italian regions before and during the pandemic. Our results suggest that there has been an increase in religiousness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings are robust to several specifications of the model and to different estimators. This suggests that people derive more comfort from religious activities during hard times that are characterized by uncertainty.
通过改变日常生活的许多方面，COVID-19 大流行和为应对它而实施的社交距离政策影响了全世界人民的行为。大流行是否也影响了人们对神的态度？先前的证据表明，互联网上的祈祷搜索量在大流行期间上升，而且人们倾向于主要依靠内在的而不是外在的宗教信仰来应对逆境。在本研究中，我们使用了一组面板随机效应估计量，比较了意大利各地区在大流行前后宗教参与度的变化。我们的研究结果表明，在 COVID-19 大流行期间宗教信仰有所增加。我们的发现对于模型的几个具体内容和不同的估计量都是稳健的。这表明，在充满不确定性的困难时期，人们从宗教活动中获得了更多的安慰。
