Kulkova Anna

№ 3, 2017

• Religion or Communist Legacy? Influence of Religion on Attitudes towards Welfare State in European Countries

  The article examines the influence of religion on the attitudes of Europe- ans towards the welfare state. A.Kulkova performs multilevel statistical analyses of the data from the fourth wave of the European Social Survey conducted in 27 European countries to conclude that individual religiosity, as well as the affiliation with the Catholic or Protestant tradition, has a negative impact on the perception of the welfare state. Contrary to that, Orthodox Christianity at both the individual and country levels is associated with an increased support for redistribution. At the same time, while there is a pronounced negative relationship between religiosity and the attitudes towards the welfare state in the countries without a communist past, in the post-communist countries, the higher levels of religiosity have almost no effect on the attitudes towards redistribution.

  DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2017-86-3-117-135