%0 Journal Article
%A Puga-Gonzalez, Ivan
%A Voas, David
%A Kiszkiel, Lukasz
%A Bacon, Rachel J
%A Wildman, Wesley J
%A Talmont-Kaminski, Konrad
%A Shults, F LeRon
%D 2022
%F discovery:10163198
%I Brill
%J Journal of Religion and Demography
%K Demographic projection; religiosity; secularization; microsimulation; cohort effects
%N 1-2
%P 111-137
%T Modeling Fuzzy Fidelity: Using Microsimulation to Explore Age, Period, and Cohort Effects in Secularization
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10163198/
%V 9
%X This article presents a microsimulation that explores age, period, and cohort effects in the decline of religiosity in contemporary societies. The model implements a well-known and previously empirically validated theory of secularization that highlights the role of “fuzzy fidelity,” i.e., the percentage of a population whose religiosity is moderate (Voas 2009). Validation of the model involved comparing its simulation results to shifts in religiosity over 9 waves of the European Social Survey. Simulation experiments suggest that a cohort effect, based on weakened transmission of religiosity as a function of the social environment, appears to be the best explanation for secularization in the societies studied, both for the population as a whole and for the proportions of religious, fuzzy, and secular people.
%Z This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.