Ifo study: Introduction of ethics lessons influences how religious and conservative people are

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Empty pews: According to an Ifo study, religiosity has decreased due to ethics lessons

Photo: Pressefoto Rudel / Robin Rudel / IMAGO

What was the effect of introducing ethics as an alternative to religious education?

About religious and social ideas in adulthood?

Researchers at the Munich Ifo Institute have investigated these questions and want to establish a connection: From a statistical point of view, ethics lessons in schools have contributed to a lower level of religiosity in adulthood.

At the same time, the introduction of the subject pushed back traditional gender roles and increased labor market participation and wages.

This emerges from a communication published this Tuesday by the Ifo Institute on the study results.

"In addition to general religiosity, there was also a decrease in the likelihood of attending church services, praying or being a member of a church," says Ifo researcher Ludger Woessmann.

These consequences can be observed especially in Catholic regions.

How solid is the study?

The study was based on survey data from more than 58,000 adults who started school in West Germany between 1950 and 2004.

The West German federal states replaced the compulsory attendance of religious instruction at different times with a choice between religious and ethics instruction - from 1972 in Bavaria to 2004 in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Before the reform, the compulsory religious education was intensive, according to the research team.

During the entire school period, it therefore comprised around a thousand lessons, around four times as many as physics lessons.

The ethics lessons did not influence life satisfaction or ethical behavior such as voluntary work: "The introduction of the option between religious and ethics lessons did not come at the expense of general ethical attitudes," said Ifo researcher Larissa Zierow.

After the introduction of ethics classes, however, traditional attitudes towards the division of tasks between the sexes and the necessity of marriage were allegedly pushed back.

This is reflected

• in the number of marriages entered into (−1.5 percentage points)

• and births (−0.1 children).

For that rose

• labor market participation (+1.5 percentage points)

• the working hours (+0.6 hours per week)

• and the wage level (+5.3 percent).

The study definitely raises questions.

It is reasonable to assume that it was less the introduction of ethics lessons than general social developments that might have changed religiosity, traditional ways of thinking or trends in the labor market.

In addition, most of the changes measured by the Ifo Institute are within the framework of only small changes.

But these are statistically significant, said Ifo researcher Benjamin Arold when asked by SPIEGEL.

Federalism as a "stroke of luck" for science

The research team separated the effects of ethics teaching on religiosity from general social development as follows: It took into account that the West German federal states had introduced the teaching reform at different times. "From a scientific point of view, educational federalism was a godsend for us," says Arold.

First of all, it was possible to look at the different age groups within a federal state. The older ones went to school under the old regulation, the younger ones under the new one. Second, the researchers compared the difference in the religiosity of these age groups with the differences between the same age groups in other federal states, as a kind of "control group", as Arold says, which had no reform at the time.

But maybe there was no reform in the respective federal states, for example because religiosity is more important there - and that is why religious instruction was retained?

"We also considered this option," says Arold.

But social trends in the population in the respective federal states without reform or before the reform were taken into account in the study.

It is clear to the researcher that the introduction of ethics education had the aforementioned effects.

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