The Evolutionary Dynamics of Religion, Family Size, and Child Success

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Religion, Family Size, and Child Success

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Religion, Family Size, and Child Success

Welcome to our Research Project

 

Across the world, religious people have more children than their secular counterparts. In modern environments, the number of children in a family is inversely related to child success. Yet children born to religious parents often flourish. Why?

We are an international team investigating how religion impacts family size, child health and child success. Our research involves interviewing 8,500 participants about family, religion, support and health from across Bangladesh, India, Malawi, the Gambia, and the United States. This research is part of  the ‘John Templeton Foundation’ and ‘Templeton Religion Trust’ funded project “The Evolutionary Dynamics of Religion, Family Size, and Child Success. Find more details about how the project is pre-registered on our Open Science Framework page.

Find your way around

The Project

All the ins and outs of this research.

Core Team

The researchers behind this project.

Collaborators

Where we collect our data.

Research Findings

What we’ve found out so far.

News

Stay in the loop.

Contact Us

Find out more.

News

Data collection in West Kiang, The Gambia

Data collection in West Kiang, The Gambia

Data collection in West Kiang, The GambiaBy Anne Cathrine Petersen​Thanks to our great team in West Kiang, our data collection is progressing well. Here is part of the team: Lamin Sanyang, Tumbulu...

read more

Funding & Collaborations

The project is a collaboration between anthropologists and demographers from four universities: University of Otago, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Pennsylvania State University, and University of Connecticut. The project is funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and Templeton Religion Trust.

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Religion, Family Size, and Child Success

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on YouTube

Open Science Framework