Religion, Identity, and Political Preferences

This paper provides causal evidence on the impact of religious identification on political preferences, gender norms, and societal beliefs. Exploiting clergy sexual abuse scandals as a source of exogenous variation in Catholicism, we demonstrate that religious de-identification leads to significant shifts in individual attitudes and political alignment. Using data on millions of U.S. college freshmen and county-level voting records, we find that secularization causes more progressive positions on issues like abortion rights and same-sex marriage, but more conservative views on universal healthcare and military spending. The net effect is a substantial leftward shift in overall political orientation. We also document more progressive gender attitudes, particularly regarding women's workforce participation, among those who de-identify as Catholic. Notably, religious de-identification reduces individuals' propensity to engage in other group activities. Additional analyses suggest that as individuals disaffiliate from Catholicism, they increasingly identify with their social class, which polarizes economic preferences between high and low-income groups.