Fertility and religiosity in Russia: assessing interaction

The present studyis devoted to the definition of the role of religion in the formation of reproductive behavior and attitudes of the population of the Russian Federation. Within the study the authors found out that the issue of religiosity of the population and its impact on reproductive behavior are widely discussed both in the scientific community and among the spiritual leaders of various faiths. The significance of the religious factor is greatly exaggerated. In this regard, the authors tried to find objective, statistically significant and comparable parameters to assess the level of religiosity of Russian society and its impact on the reproductive behavior of the population.First of all, the authors assessed dynamics of the number of religious organizations. This is an indirect indicator of the level of spread of different religions in the country. The analysis showed an increase in the number of religious organizations, which may indirectly indicate an increase in the religiosity of the population.In addition, to assess the impact of religiosity on the reproductive behavior of the Russian population, an original approach was used, which is an analysis “from the opposite”. On the basis of statistical data on the level of the total fertility rate in the regions of the country, two groups of subjects were formed - with the highest and the lowest levels of this indicator. Further, in the selected regions, the authors made an attempt to assess the level of religiosity. However, the study was conducted not within a group of believers, but a group of atheists. The results of the analysis showed that the level of religiosity of the younger generation of Russians has very little effect on their reproductive attitudes. Moreover, on the basis of indicators of the number of religious organizations in the subjects of Russia, the proportion of persons professing a particular religion in the total population of the regions and the total fertility rate for 2011-2016 were carried out correlation and regression analyses, which confirmed the weak relationship between the level of religiosity and fertility in modern Russia.