The association between religion and fertility among natives and immigrants in Sweden

This study explores the association between religious affiliation and fertility among both immigrant and native men and women in Sweden. GGS data from 2012/2013 and 2021 are used to examine religion’s association with three different dimensions of fertility: the ideal number of children, short-term fertility intentions, and the achieved number of children at age 40. To disentangle the association between religious affiliation and fertility from the association between geographical origin and fertility, this study analyzes how ideal, intended, and achieved fertility vary across religious affiliations within geographical origin groups and across geographical origins within religious affiliations. Results show that Christian and Muslim immigrants who share the same geographical origin often have similar ideal, intended, and achieved fertility. Christians and Muslims often have higher ideal, intended, and achieved fertility than non-religious individuals of the same geographical origin. Within-affiliation differences in ideal, intended, and achieved fertility by geographical origin are generally larger among Christians and Muslims than among non-religious individuals. Whether religion has a greater influence on fertility preferences or fertility behavior varies between origin and affiliation groups. This study shows that religion is an important factor in understanding fertility patterns among both immigrants and natives in Sweden. Results indicate that earlier analyses of the association between religion and fertility among immigrants that do not take immigrants’ geographical origin into consideration may be misleading, since such analyses may attribute group differences that are best explained as origin effects to influences from religion.