The pandemic has accelerated the growth of non-religious people in Spain. It is one of the conclusions of the Laicitat en xifres 2023 report presented this week by the Fundació Ferrer Guàrdia. Currently, 40% of the population consider themselves agnostic, atheist or are indifferent to religion, a record figure that has grown uninterruptedly since 1980, when then non-religious people represented only 8.5% of the total .
The study reflects how after the first quarter of 2020, after the outbreak of the coronavirus and the start of confinement, non-religious awareness options increased considerably among the population. According to this entity, based on data from the Center for Sociological Research (CIS), among others, if in 2019, 27.9% of the population considered themselves non-religious, 2022 closed with about 40%.
The study analyzes what happened month by month between 2020 and 2022 and observes how between March and April 2020, non-believers skyrocketed from 29% to 36%, a figure that has continued to grow to date, albeit slowly. more gradual since then. It is the steepest rise in the last decade.
The researcher and co-author of the study Josep Mañé attributes the increase in secularization during the health emergency to a multifactorial phenomenon. He affirms that it may be due to "a change of conscience and rethinking of religion" motivated by the exceptional situation experienced.
"Moments of crisis or profound social changes are conducive to changes in mentality," he explains, and considers that the "impact of the covid" could have played a prominent role in accelerating the growth of non-believers. Even so, the researcher considers that beyond the data, research on this phenomenon would require a more in-depth qualitative study to find out all the possible causes.
One of the groups in which the pandemic has made a dent is non-practicing believers who, according to the report, have been fewer since the pandemic. The authors of the study note that “they most likely have moved to have non-religious conscience options.
"It has a certain logic since it was a population group that lived religion with a low intensity, out of custom or tradition," they point out. Currently, the report indicates that only 18.7% of the total population declares itself a practicing believer, the "lowest figure in the historical series", as they explain.
The study also focuses on the increase in young people who do not embrace any confession. 60% between the ages of 18 and 24 and almost 58% in the age range from 25 to 34 declare themselves to be non-religious. The study reflects that in the older population, the proportion of people adhering to religious options is still the majority, but the researchers warn that "the generational change can cause notable changes in the coming years."
