Declining societal religious norms are linked to rising youth anxiety across 70 countries

A recent study published in the journal Developmental Science suggests that shifts in cultural expectations for young people may play a role in rising child and adolescent anxiety rates. Specifically, the research indicates that growing up in societies with declining religious norms tends to be associated with an increase in youth anxiety. These findings provide evidence that community wide beliefs shape youth mental health, hinting at a need to find new ways to offer young people a sense of belonging in the modern world.

Over the past three decades, many societies have changed how they raise children. Cultural expectations have shifted away from community focused values, like obedience, and toward individualistic traits, like personal responsibility. Scientists wanted to understand how these shifting societal values affect the mental well-being of children and teens.

“Around the globe, we see rising numbers in young people being affected by mental health struggles. To be able to stop this concerning trend, it is needed to understand why mental disorders such as anxiety disorders are rising. There has been much research on COVID-19, climate change and wars, which are all relevant factors. We wanted to explore the role of culture and changing expectations towards children and adolescents,” said study author Leonard K. Kulisch, a PhD student at Ruhr University Bochum.

Previous research proposed that highly individualistic cultures might harm mental health by creating extreme pressure to succeed. However, most past studies only looked at wealthy Western countries at a single point in time. The researchers aimed to look at global data over several decades to see if changes in parenting goals actually predicted changes in youth anxiety.

Parenting expectations are often called socialization goals, which represent the character traits that adults hope to cultivate in children. These goals provide a window into a culture’s broader values. Some cultures favor an independent orientation that encourages self-expression, while others favor an interdependent orientation that prioritizes social harmony and religious faith.

To explore this topic, the scientists conducted two separate studies. The first study examined large scale societal data across 70 countries from 1989 to 2022. They gathered cultural data from the World Value Survey, which included between 2,400 and 40,230 adult participants per country.

This survey asked adults to choose the qualities they thought were most important to encourage in children. The researchers then compared these cultural values to youth anxiety rates from the Global Burden of Disease database. This health database estimates the number of new anxiety disorder cases per 100,000 children and teens based on clinical records and registries.

The scientists examined whether a shift toward independence related goals predicted rising anxiety. On a global scale, an emphasis on independence did not seem to affect youth mental health. However, the picture looked different in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic nations.

In these specific wealthy nations, a shift toward independence based child rearing provided evidence of a link to higher anxiety rates. The scientists suggest that extreme independence in these modern societies might lead to intense competition and loneliness. In developing nations, a shift toward independence was not linked to more anxiety, likely because these traits currently help drive economic growth and improve overall quality of life.

When examining specific values globally, the scientists found one very consistent pattern. Across all 70 nations, a decrease in the societal emphasis on raising children with religious faith was linked to an increase in youth anxiety. When cultures placed less importance on religion over time, young people experienced more anxiety disorders.

“Previous literature pointed towards broad negative effects of cultural change towards more independent or individualistic values,” Kulisch told PsyPost. “This was indeed relevant for Western populations. The surprising findings was that religiosity (as a specific aspect of more interdependent or collectivistic culture) emerged as important around the world.”

The second study zoomed in on individual families to better understand this connection. The scientists used data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, tracking 3,731 children in the United States. This survey followed the same group of children from age three until age fifteen.

The researchers analyzed how a mother’s personal religious faith compared to the broader religious norms of her community. They then looked at how these two factors related to the child’s anxiety symptoms over time. This approach allowed the researchers to separate the effects of personal family beliefs from the effects of general cultural expectations.

The analysis revealed that the community’s overall religious norms were a stronger predictor of youth anxiety than a mother’s individual religious beliefs. Growing up in a highly religious society seemed to offer a protective mental health effect, regardless of how religious the child’s own family was. Shared religious beliefs likely provide young people with a structured framework for understanding the world, which can reduce uncertainty.

The scientists also used a statistical modeling method to explore the direction of this relationship. This mathematical tool assesses how past levels of one trait can predict later levels of another trait. The model suggested that early childhood religious environments tended to forecast lower anxiety by the time the children reached adolescence.

The reverse relationship was not found in the data. This means that a child’s early anxiety levels did not predict their later religious involvement. The researchers note that religious socialization likely helps children build resilience by fostering a clear sense of purpose and connecting them to a supportive community.

“Cultural expectations towards young people are changing around the globe,” Kulisch said. “A trend towards high emphasis on individual achievement and decrease of social values over the last three decades has likely contributed to high anxiety rates in the Western world. Across all 70 countries in the study, a decrease in religiosity in raising children went along with increases in anxiety disorders among children and adolescents. I believe that the loss of religion in many world regions leaves a gap and young people struggle to find belonging and meaning in the modern world.”

Theories of mental well-being emphasize that personal growth, environmental mastery, and positive relationships are foundational to psychological health. Shared religious practices often naturally promote these traits by offering steady routines, moral guidance, and strong social networks. A religious upbringing can grant young people a clear sense of direction, which acts as a buffer against modern societal pressures.

A common misinterpretation of these findings is that highly religious individuals automatically have better mental health.

“Some outlets shared the study claiming that people who are more religious do better mentally,” Kulisch explained. “Our study does not back such claims. Actually, we find that religiosity within a child’s family is less important than the overall religiosity in the whole population. Large-scale transformations on societal level are important as they potentially shape sources of belonging and meaning.”

“Additionally, the results are across time and within country. That means that changes in religiosity may have effects on mental health. But we cannot claim any between-country or between-person effects based on our study.”

In other words, the findings track how shifting cultural norms within a single society affect its overall anxiety rates over time rather than comparing individual people to one another.

The scientists also point out that the actual effect sizes in this research are relatively small. Youth mental health is complex, and cultural values represent just one piece of a very large puzzle. The studies rely on observational data, meaning the researchers cannot prove that a lack of religion directly causes anxiety.

For future research, the scientists hope to explore how communities can fill the social gap left by declining religious participation. They plan to study alternative ways to foster social connection, such as volunteering, sports clubs, and school programs. Finding new ways to help young people navigate personal challenges could support youth mental health as societies become increasingly secular.

The study, “Global Cultural Change and Anxiety in Children and Adolescents: Analyzing Socialization Goals Over Three Decades in 70 Countries,” was authored by Leonard Konstantin Kulisch, Ana Lorena Domínguez Rojas, Silvia Schneider, and Babett Voigt.