본 논문은 1,500만 명의 휴대전화 사용자의 이동성 데이터를 활용하여 미국에서 대면 종교 참석에 미치는 팬데믹의 영향을 조사한다. 2020년 3월, 미국에서 코로나19가 확산한 이후 미국인의 이동은 급격하게 감소하고 느리게 회복하였다. 특히 종교 예배 참석률은 레스토랑 방문과 같은 다른 활동들보다 더 점진적으로 반등했다. 또한 가톨릭 신자가 개신교 신자보다 더 느린 속도로 회복되는 등 종교 단체 간에도 차이가 있었다. 2022년 말까지 두 그룹 모두 2019년 참석률의 약 90%에 도달했다. 본 논문은 또한 미국 가톨릭 주교들의 미사의무 면제 해제 시점의 차이를 활용하여 종교 정책이 행동에 미치는 영향을 조사하는 새로운 접근법을 소개한다. 이중차분 이벤트 연구 모델을 사용하여 분배 해제 후 가톨릭 주말 교회 참석률이 2019년 기준치에 비해 4.0%포인트 단기적으로 증가함을 발견한다. 그러나 이 효과는 시간이 지남에 따라 사라지고 폐쇄 후 교회 재개관 후 나타난 참석 급증보다 작다. 이러한 결과는 종교 정책이 비록 그 효과가 일시적일 수 있지만 행동에 영향을 미친다는 것을 시사한다.
This paper delves into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and related policies on religious attendance, with a particular focus on Catholic church attendance in the United States. The study utilizes smartphone location data from SafeGraph Inc. to track weekly religious attendance trends from 2019 through the end of 2022. This approach offers a comprehensive analysis of how attendance patterns evolved during the pandemic. Notably, the study leverages two distinctive features of the Catholic Church: its division into 175 U.S. territorial dioceses, each overseen by a bishop, and the requirement for members to attend Sunday Mass. The study reveals several significant findings. Firstly, it highlights the dramatic decline in religious service attendance following the outbreak of Covid-19. In comparison to 2019 attendance levels, Catholic church visits lagged behind restaurants and other religious institutions throughout 2020 and 2021. However, by 2022, both Catholic and non-Catholic religious attendance had rebounded, returning to approximately 90% of their 2019 levels by October 2022. Secondly, the paper explores the impact of religious policies, focusing on the lifting of dispensations that temporarily exempted Catholics from the requirement to attend Sunday Mass during the pandemic. The study uncovers that dispensation lifting resulted in a 4 percentage point increase in weekend church attendance compared to the 2019 baseline. Notably, this boost was short-lived, lasting for only six weeks following the lifting of dispensations. It's worth mentioning that the effect of lifting dispensations was smaller in magnitude compared to the impact of church reopenings, which were associated with a 6 to 10 percentage point increase in attendance. Thirdly, the study emphasizes the lack of a significant correlation between the lifting of dispensations and changes in visits to non-Catholic religious institutions or restaurants. This suggests that the impact of dispensation lifting on church attendance was independent of other reopening events. In the broader context, this paper contributes to the understanding of religious practice in the face of adverse events, such as natural disasters or economic crises. It distinguishes itself by using actual behavioral data, offering high-frequency insights into the dynamics of religious practice, and benefiting from a large sample size. Additionally, the study sheds light on the impact of religious policies on individual behavior, particularly through the novel exogenous variation introduced by the lifting of dispensations in U.S. Catholic dioceses. Furthermore, this research aligns with the broader body of literature on the effects of social distancing measures on mobility patterns. It contributes valuable insights into mobility within religious institutions, contrasting it with mobility trends in restaurants and bars.
Executive Summary 1. Introduction 2. Background: The US Catholic Church and Dispensations 3. Data 4. Foot Traffic Trends 5. Religious Policies and Church Attendance 6. Robustness and Placebo Tests 7. Conclusion References Tables and Figures Appendix Tables and Figures Appendix B: Classifying Religious Organizations
