Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Change the Global Trend in Religiosity? An Interrupted Time Series Analysis of Survey Data from 165 Countries (2005–2024)

Scholars have long viewed religion as a coping resource during times of adversity and uncertainty. Did the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 increase religiosity? To test this question, we applied interrupted time-series regression to the Gallup World Poll (2.6 million respondents, 165 countries, 2005–2024). We found that global religiosity, which had been slightly declining, generally increased during the pandemic years. A multilevel extension of this regression revealed variations in this trend. The religious rebound was more pronounced among affluent individuals, whereas the high religiosity among poorer individuals remained unaffected. Regional analyses further clarified that religiosity rebounded in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, declined in former Soviet countries, and remained unchanged in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, where the baseline was high before the pandemic. The pandemic reshaped the global religious landscape by reversing secularization trends in some regions, while its effect on religiosity depended on the baseline level of religiosity.