Changing Religious Affiliation in the Chinese Mainland: A Cohort Perspective

Abstract

The religious revival during the reform and opening-up period in the Chinese mainland has long been a prominent and contentious issue. This study utilized repeated cross-sectional datasets from the Chinese General Social Survey from 2006 to 2021 to assess cohort changes in religious affiliation. It employed a temporal framework that considered both the religious and rural–urban differences. Results from age-period-cohort models indicated that cohorts born in the 1960s experienced a religious revival in the Chinese mainland, with younger cohorts did not when evaluating long-term trends. Christian affiliation exhibited more pronounced cohort variations compared to Buddhist affiliation, while a consistent cohort pattern of religious change was observed between rural and urban areas. These findings unraveled the complex trends of religious change as the Chinese family is an important setting for the transmission of religion, shedding new light on the applicability of secularization theory in socialist countries.