%0 Report
        %A Becker, Sascha O.
%A Nagler, Markus
%A Woessmann, Ludger
        %T Education Promoted Secularization
        %D 2014
        %8 2014 Mar
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 8016
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp8016
        %X Why did substantial parts of Europe abandon the institutionalized churches around 1900? Empirical studies using modern data mostly contradict the traditional view that education was a leading source of the seismic social phenomenon of secularization. We construct a unique panel dataset of advanced-school enrollment and Protestant church attendance in German cities between 1890 and 1930. Our cross-sectional estimates replicate a positive association. By contrast, in panel models where fixed effects account for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, education – but not income or urbanization – is negatively related to church attendance. In panel models with lagged explanatory variables, educational expansion precedes reduced church attendance.
        %K history
%K education
%K secularization
%K Germany