In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In times of crisis, humans have a tendency to turn to religion for comfort and explanation. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Using daily and weekly data on Google searches for 107 countries, this research demonstrates that the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a massive rise in the intensity of prayer. During the early months of the pandemic, Google searches for prayer relative to all Google searches rose by 30%, reaching the highest level ever recorded. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that by April 1, 2020, more than half of the world population had prayed to end the coronavirus. Prayer searches remained 10% higher than previously throughout 2020, particularly so in Europe and the Americas. Prayer searches rose more among the more religious, rose on all continents, at all levels of income, inequality, and insecurity, and for all types of religion, except Buddhism. The increase is not merely a substitute for services in the physical churches that closed down to limit the spread of the virus. Instead, the rise is due to an intensified demand for religion: People pray to cope with adversity. The results thus reveal that religiosity has risen globally due to the pandemic with potential direct long-term consequences for various socio-economic outcomes.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Disaster; Empirical analysis; Google search data; Psychological coping; Religiosity.

Fig. 1

Worldwide Google searches for prayer as a share of total Google searches 2017–2020. Average global weekly Google searches for prayer 2017–2020, measured as a share of all Google searches, encompassing all topics related to prayer, including alternative spellings and languages. Panel (a) depicts the global level of Google searches over time, where the maximum share was set to 100 by Google Trends. The vertical stippled lines represent the first week of the Ramadan. Panel (b) shows the growth in the prayer search share relative to the same week the year before, after removing variation due to religious holidays. Data source: Google Trends. For the development since 2004, see Fig. A.18. Find more details in Section 4.

Fig. 2

The spatial spread of prayer search growth during 2020. Average growth in prayer search shares 2019 - 2020.

Fig. 3

Global Google searches for prayer and internet church. Global average of Google searches for topics related to prayer and internet church Jan 1 - Apr 1 2020.

Fig. 4

Contents of the prayer searches. Top-25 search queries within the prayer topic (panel a) and top-25 topics that relate to the prayer topic (panel b), measured on March 10–30 2020. As 88% of the queries within the prayer topic includes searches for prayer in different languages, panel a includes only the 12% searches that do not directly mean “prayer”.

Fig. 5

The rise in prayer search shares for different denominations. The rise in prayer intensity for different prayer search shares in 2019 in Panel (a), different earthquake risk intensities in panel (b), divided into quartiles, and different major religious denominations in Panel (c). Each dot represents the estimate of the rise in prayer search shares after March 11, in an OLS regression, where the rise in prayer search shares is allowed to vary with initial religiosity levels in panel (a), with earthquake risk in panel (b), and with religious denominations in panel (c), controlling for the initial prayer search share, country-specific time trends, country fixed effects, and religious holidays. The denominations are defined based on there being at least 25% adherents to the particular denomination in a country. The horizontal lines represent the 95% confidence bounds. See more details in Appendix A.1 and 4.4. Result: Prayer intensity rose for all religious denominations, except buddhists, and rose more in more religious countries.

Fig. 5

The rise in prayer search shares for different denominations. The rise in prayer intensity for different prayer search shares in 2019 in Panel (a), different earthquake risk intensities in panel (b), divided into quartiles, and different major religious denominations in Panel (c). Each dot represents the estimate of the rise in prayer search shares after March 11, in an OLS regression, where the rise in prayer search shares is allowed to vary with initial religiosity levels in panel (a), with earthquake risk in panel (b), and with religious denominations in panel (c), controlling for the initial prayer search share, country-specific time trends, country fixed effects, and religious holidays. The denominations are defined based on there being at least 25% adherents to the particular denomination in a country. The horizontal lines represent the 95% confidence bounds. See more details in Appendix A.1 and 4.4. Result: Prayer intensity rose for all religious denominations, except buddhists, and rose more in more religious countries.

Fig. A.6

Example of high and low data quality.

Fig. A.7

Worldwide Google searches for “prayer” compared to the year before. Replication of panel b of Fig. 1, but including the corresponding average for the 107 countries in the sample.

Fig. A.8

Relation between survey answers on prayer and Google search shares for prayer. Correlation between the share of Google searches for prayer in 2019 and the share of survey respondents answering that they pray weekly in Panels (a) and (c) and the share of survey respondents answering that they take moments of prayer, meditation, and contemplation in Panels (b) and (d). Panels (a) and (b) depict the raw correlation, while Panels (c) and (d) depict the correlation after controlling for continent fixed effects. The grey line represents the fitted line, while the stippled lines represent the 95% confidence intervals. The measures are described in Section Appendix A.

Fig. A.9

Top search terms within the topic “Prayer”. The figure shows the four largest contributors to the rise in the global average of the development in daily searches for prayer. Searches for “prayer for coronavirus” includes searches for “prayer for COVID-19”.

Fig. A.10

Geographic spread of searches for “pray for italy” March 5–30 2020.

Fig. A.11

Example of a guide to a coronavirus prayer.

Fig. A.12

Example of a coronavirus prayer. The website of World Vision: https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/prayers-people-affected-new-coronavirus.

Fig. A.13

Example of website with COVID-19 prayers. The website of the Church of England: https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-liturgy-and-prayer-resources.

Fig. A.14

Example of website with list of COVID-19 prayers. The website of website of My Catholic Life: https://mycatholic.life/catholic-prayers/a-prayer-for-healing-and-hope/.

Fig. A.15

Google searches for other terms affected by COVID-19. Global average of Google searches on different topics over the period Feb 1 to April 1, 2020. The searches are set to 100 by Google Trends for the largest search within each panel. The size of the increases are therefore not comparable across panels, but they are comparable within one panel.

Fig. A.16

Daily Google searches for the topic “prayer” by region. Google searches for prayer as a share of the total number of Google searches on the particular day, set to 1 on February 15, 2020. A country drops out of the sample after it reaches its’ peak during the period Feb 15 to Apr 1. The searches encompass topics related to prayer, including alternative spellings and languages. The light-coloured lines represent a country. The darker-coloured lines represent the average prayer intensity for the particular group.

Fig. A.17

Distribution of the countries based on first day with two-weeks rise in prayer search shares. The histogram shows the distribution countries, based on the first week when their prayer search shares rose more than one standard deviation above their previous level for two consecutive weeks.

Fig. A.18

Global Google searches for prayer Jan 2004 to Dec 2020. The figure replicates panel a of Fig. 1 with data going back to January 1, 2004.

Fig. A.19

The spatial spread of prayer search growth during 2020. The figure replicates Fig. 2, but calculates the average for two separate periods: The average yearly growth rate from March and April 2019 to March and April 2020 in panel a and the average yearly growth rate from the period May-Dec 2019 to the same period in 2020 in panel b.

Fig. A.20

The correlation between prayer search growth early vs late 2020.

Fig. A.21

Google searches for religious topics Apr 14 2019 - Apr 14 2020. Global average of Google searches on religious topics over the period April 14, 2019 to April 14, 2020. Google Trends sets the searches to 100 for the largest search within each time series. The search shares are therefore not comparable across panels, but they are comparable within one panel.

Fig. A.21

Google searches for religious topics Apr 14 2019 - Apr 14 2020. Global average of Google searches on religious topics over the period April 14, 2019 to April 14, 2020. Google Trends sets the searches to 100 for the largest search within each time series. The search shares are therefore not comparable across panels, but they are comparable within one panel.

Fig. A.22

Worldwide Google searches for prayer as a share of total Google searches 2018–2020. Replication of panel b of Fig. 1, but with the level of prayer search shares as dependent variable instead of the growth rate.

Fig. A.23

The spatial spread of the change in prayer searches 2019–2020. The figure replicates Fig. 2 for the average change in prayer searches from 2019 to 2020 instead of the growth rate.

Fig. A.24

The rise in prayer search shares for different religiosity and denominations. The figure replicates Fig. 5 using the level of prayer search shares as dependent variable instead of the growth rate. Therefore the models also do not control for the initial level of prayer searches.

Fig. A.24

The rise in prayer search shares for different religiosity and denominations. The figure replicates Fig. 5 using the level of prayer search shares as dependent variable instead of the growth rate. Therefore the models also do not control for the initial level of prayer searches.

Fig. A.25

Binned added variables plots of the rise in prayer search shares after different dates. The binned added variables plot of regressions of the prayer search share on the pandemic dummy in Panel (a), the dummy equal to one after the first 10 cases were registered in Panel (b), after the first death is registered in Panel (c), and after the first Google search on “anosmia” in Panel (d). The regressions mirror those in columns (1)-(4) of Table 3. The observations are binned into 100 equally sized bins.