Higher relative religiosity predicts larger social networks, more relatives in these networks, more geographically scattered networks, more emotional support but not more financial assistance or childcare help from relatives

More Religious Women Have Larger and More Kin Dense Social Networks in a Country Undergoing Rapid Market Integration. Robert Lynch. Human Behavior & Evolution Society HBES 2021, Jun-Jul 2021. https://osf.io/p2tez/?pid=9sjr4

-  Increasing geographic mobility, modernization and access  to social media can undermine social networks (Zeklinsky, 1971).

-  Market integration reduces kin density in women’s ego-networks in rural Poland (Colleran, 2020).

-  In traditional and pre-industrial societies the majority of alloparenting comes from kin (Sear and Coall, 2011).

-  Alloparenting support decreases as societies modernize and may contribute to a reduction in fertility (Mathews and Sear, 2013).

-  Modern labor markets increase the incentives for people to move further away from family in search of jobs (Turke, 1989).

-  Religious rituals serve to bond group members and increase group cohesion  (Durkheim, 1915).

-  Religious rituals  increase solidarity by signaling adherence to a moral code or commitment to a social order which builds trust and facilitates cooperation amongst religious group members (Rappaport, 1999).

-  The role of religion in the shift from intensive to extensive kin systems (Henrich, 2020).

-  The impact of religion on bridging and bonding social capital (Olson, 1971).The paradox of religious fertility (Shaver, 2019, Sosis, 2019).

Study Questions

Does religion provide a bulwark against the fracturing of social networks disrupted by rapid globalization? If so, does it do so by strengthening ties amongst relatives or does it serve to broaden social networks by increasing the number or strength of ties between practitioners, thereby replacing support networks from genetic kin with unrelated co-religionists?

Study Predictions

Prediction 1: Higher religiosity will be positively associated with larger overall social networks.

Prediction 2: More religious individuals will have more relatives in their networks.

Prediction 3: Higher religiosity will be associated with the closer geographic proximity of kin.

Prediction 4: Higher religiosity will be positively associated with more financial support from kin. [Not pre-registered]

Prediction 5: Higher religiosity will be positively associated with more alloparenting support from kin

Prediction 6: Higher religiosity will be positively associated with more emotional support from kin.

Results... Higher relative religiosity predicts:

.  Larger social networks overall

.  More relatives in these networks

.  More geographically scattered networks overall

.  More emotional support but not more financial assistance or help with childcare from relatives