Do religious people cope better in a crisis? Evidence from the UK pandemic lockdowns

Abstract

We measure whether religious people in the UK coped better during the nationwide pandemic lockdowns using the Understanding Society longitudinal dataset. Using religious belonging and religious intensity, both measured before the pandemic, we find that those who belonged to a religion, and those who stated that religion made a difference to their life, coped better during the pandemic. The magnitude of the difference is sizeable. For the Caseness aggregate measure of psychological distress, the coefficient on religious belonging is around one fifth of the lockdown coefficient. We also estimate the aggregate relationship between religious intensity and coping among those who belong to a religion. Here we find no evidence that intensity of faith is related to better coping. However, we do find some heterogeneity among religions, where intensity is associated with better coping among Christians, while among Muslims we find the opposite relationship.