Changing perceived importance of religion in mainland China, 1990-2012: An age-period- cohort analysis

The comprehensive social reform and relaxation of religious regulation in mainland China have encouraged scholars to propose a revival thesis of religion, predicting a rising prevalence of religious adherence in the Reform Era. This study extends the revival thesis by focusing attention on people's subjective religiosity, and investigates age, period, and cohort effects on the transition in perceived importance of religion from 1990 to 2012. Capitalizing on the repeated cross-sectional data of the China sample in the World Values Survey, this study shows that (1) The senior population, relative to the younger counterpart, attaches greater importance to religion. (2) The net period effect suggests that Chinese citizens' perceived importance of religion follows an upward trend by the early 2000s, but no significant growth is detected henceforward. (3) The cohorts who experienced the anti-religion Mao's Era in their adolescent life course stage have an evidently lower probability of viewing religion to be important, in relation to the cohorts of the Reform Era. Theoretical implications of the empirical age-period-cohort patterns for the religious economies theory and change of Chinese religious landscape are discussed.