2011: Max Weber Again?

Protestant v Catholic: which countries are more successful?

Could religion be playing a part in the relative success of Europe's economies? One academic thinks so

Chris Arnot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 October 2011 13.00 EDT

Dr Sascha Becker believes religion is a factor in economic differences. Photograph: Warwick University


If maps were shaded like balance sheets, the bottom part of mainland Europe would be deepest red. Italy, Spain and Portugal are heavily in debt. They are also Catholic countries. Their predominantly Protestant neighbours to the north, including Germany and Scandinavia, are in comparatively good shape financially. Is that simply a coincidence, or is Max Weber's theory about the Protestant ethic being intertwined with the spirit of capitalism still valid, over 100 years on?

Dr Sascha Becker moved to Warwick University from Munich, where Weber finished his career as a sociologist. And his recent research leads him to suggest that religion is a factor in the budgetary discrepancies between the north and south of Europe. "There are plenty of other factors, too, and they're not easy to disentangle," concedes the deputy director of Warwick's Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy [Cage]. "But even data compiled as recently as 2000 suggests that Protestants generally are educated to a higher level than Catholics. They have a higher probability of going to university and finishing their course."

Cage is one of several centres at British universities supported by the Economic and Social Research Council and setting out to put economic performance in some kind of perspective. Becker believes that historical context can help to explain the difference between comparative success and failure.

Together with Ludger Woessmann, professor of economics at Munich, he started by looking at data from 19th-century Prussia, the society that Weber was born into. The region was split into 450 counties, around two thirds of them predominantly Protestant and the other third Catholic. "Religiosity was more pervasive at that time than it is today," he says, "and it seems that religion was the main driver behind education differences. Protestants were more likely to be encouraged to go to school. And this higher level of education translated into jobs in manufacturing and services rather than agriculture. Accordingly, they earned higher incomes than their Catholic neighbours."

In a paper written in 2009 for the Quarterly Journal of Economics, entitled Was Weber Wrong?, Becker and Woessmann argue that Protestants were more successful because they had the advantage of a better and longer education. Further research has led them to conclude that the educational advantage began soon after Martin Luther broke away from the established Church in the 16th century and has continued to play its part in creating economic success throughout Europe.

Luther wanted women as well as men to be able to read the Bible, he points out. Not only did his followers set out to establish church schools in every parish, but girls went there as well as boys, he says. "We looked into the records of school building in the German federal state of Brandenburg in the 16th century, and discovered that there were disproportionately more girls in school than boys. Protestantism, it seems, was an early driver of emancipation. At that time, remember, Catholic areas didn't even have any boys' schools.

"Those trends continued into the 20th century, when women were allowed to go to university. Comparatively few Catholic women went."

What about the 21st century?

"Well, we looked at the German equivalent of the British Household Panel Survey for the year 2000. It measures economic and social change and covers such areas as income, education …" And religion? "Obviously religion doesn't play as much of a role now as it did over 100 years ago, but it's still the case that Catholics tend to marry Catholics and Protestants tend to marry Protestants – or at least those from a Protestant background. Also, attitudes towards education tend to linger from one generation to another. So if your parents and grandparents went to university, then you are likely to go yourself. That's how these differences survive to this day." He goes on to caution that he is talking about general trends. "We all know Catholic professors and Protestants who are uneducated," he says.

I can't help wondering where France fits into this analysis. Considered an economic power in mainland Europe, it is predominantly Catholic and its southern regions are on the same latitude as northern Italy. "France is a good example of how political secularism affects performance," Becker ventures. "It came in much earlier there than in Italy, which still carries statements by the Pope on the front pages of its newspapers."

And what about Greece, whose economy is in danger of collapse? Becker prefers not to venture into Greek Orthodoxy. "I prefer to make statements when there are statistics to back them up," he says, before stressing once again that religion is only one factor in the balance-sheet shades on the map of mainland Europe.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/31/economics-religion-research/print