Religion has long faced accusations that it focuses almost exclusively on the past at the expense of the future, and this inherent conservatism can hold back progress in society.  It’s an accusation shared by new research from Bocconi University, which explored the role religion played during the Second Industrial Revolution in France between 1870 and 1914.

The research explains that the Catholic Church opposed the introduction of technical education in primary schools, which restricted the accumulation of human capital in areas that were heavily religious.  This in terms resulted in lower industrial employment in the following years.

“And these findings have important implications for economic development today,” the researchers explain, “since many developing countries—where religion plays a primary role in the personal and public spheres—are experiencing large-scale technological progress, similar to that of Western Europe during the Second Industrial Revolution.”

Technical skills

The researchers highlight that the various technologies of the Second Industrial Revolution required a technically skilled workforce.  As a result, the French government actively promoted a technical curriculum in schools to produce that human capital.

It was a development that was opposed by the Church, who were more interested in promoting a heavily conservative and antiscientific curriculum, which hindered the development of technical skills and caused a clear divide between secular and religious schools.

The religious intensity of an area was strongly linked with the diffusion of religious education, and subsequently the poor level of industrial development.  Indeed, moving from the 10th to 90th percentile of share of Catholic schools results in a fall in the share of industrial employment by 6.2%, relative to an average of 28%.

This divergence was extremely prominent during the Second Industrial Revolution as this was a period in which the type and quality of the school curricula was hugely important as the development of human capital among the population played such a crucial role in industrial development.

It’s a correlation that the researchers believe highlights the potentially negative relationship between religion and economic development, although they accept that it might not always be a negative relationship, providing the Church doesn’t hinder the adoption of new knowledge, that is.