The key factors of faith transmission in Lithuanian families

ABSTRACT

Growing body of academic literature indicates changing patterns of intergenerational faith transmission. We analyse empirical evidence from Lithuania to verify factors determining the transmission of faith in a family setting. We assess if parents’ religious conservatism affects the probability transfer of parents’ beliefs to their offspring. Specifically, we propose that parents holding orthodox religious beliefs face no advantage in transferring these beliefs to their children, unless they exhibit other attributes of religious conservatism. We estimate our models with data from a survey of 300 parent-child dyads in Lithuania, conducted in June 2021. Results of logistic regression analysis confirm our expectations and open new questions for future research.

Plain Language Summary

As social scientists debate future trajectories of secularisation, transfer of religious beliefs in family settings acquires renewed academic and practical relevance. There is a disagreement in the literature as to whether religiously conservative parents differ from parents with more liberal religious views in the success of passing down their attitudes to offspring. We analyse data from 300 parent-child dyads in Lithuania and find that parents holding conservative religious beliefs have no advantage over other parents in transferring these beliefs to children. Combining orthodox religious views with other attributes of religious conservatism, however, improves the odds of belief transfer.

KEYWORDS:

• Faith transmission
• quantitative research
• socialisation
• families
• Lithuania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Description of ethics approval

Data from human research participants have been collected according to requirements of Institutional Review Board at ISM University of Management and Economics. Respondents have given their informed consent to participate in the survey, their answers have been anonymized, and no personal respondent data have been disclosed.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, V.V., upon reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vincentas Vobolevičius

Vincentas Vobolevičius, Ph.D. is a director of Economics and Politics study programme at ISM University of Management and Economics. He specialises in political economy, post-communist transformations and statistical data analysis. Vincentas defended his dissertation on electoral motivations behind government assistance to industries in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom in 2007.

D. Genys

D. Genys, Ph.D. works at the Energy Security Research Center at Vytautas Magnus University. His research interests are citizenship and civil society, sociology of energy security and sociology of sport. He defended his dissertation on “Boundaries of Lithuanian civil society and related conflicts” in 2005.