Religious beliefs and practices in Mexico: A multivariate and principal components analysis including perceived sources of stability, success, or failure in life

Beliefs and religious diversity of a country form a complex system of multiple interrelated components, profoundly influencing the daily lives of millions of people. From the 2016 National Survey on Religious Beliefs and Practice in Mexico (ENCREER/RIFREM), we focus on one of its survey questions: “To what do you attribute your stability, success, or failure in your life?,” which offered answers such as personal effort, luck, fate, God’s will, karma, compliance with God’s laws and social conditions. Using Pearson correlations, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we identify distinct attribution patterns shaped by religion, spirituality, education and socio-economic background. Secular individuals tend to emphasize personal effort, while divine explanations are more common among conservative religious groups. Belief in fate and karma is linked to spiritual openness and higher levels of education. Overall, these findings reveal how different beliefs, practices and explanatory worldviews coexist in contemporary Mexico.