Religiosity is associated with greater size, kin density, and geographic dispersal of women's social networks in Bangladesh

Abstract

Human social relationships, often grounded in kinship, are being fundamentally altered by globalization as integration into geographically distant markets disrupts traditional kin based social networks. Religion plays a significant role in regulating social networks and may both stabilize extant networks as well as create new ones in ways that are under-recognized during the process of market integration. Here we use a detailed survey assessing the social networks of women in rural Bangladesh to examine whether religiosity preserves bonds among kin or broadens social networks to include fellow practitioners, thereby replacing genetic kin with unrelated co-religionists. Results show that the social networks of more religious women are larger and contain more kin but not more non-kin. More religious women's networks are also more geographically diffuse and differ from those of less religious women by providing more emotional support, but not helping more with childcare or offering more financial assistance. Overall, these results suggest that in some areas experiencing rapid social, economic, and demographic change, religion, in certain contexts, may not serve to broaden social networks to include non-kin, but may rather help to strengthen ties between relatives and promote family cohesion.

Figure 1

Social network size and composition (Y-axis) across increasing degrees of religiosity (X-axis). More religious women have larger networks overall (top row), a similar number of non-kin in their networks (2nd row), more family members in their networks (3rd row), and a higher percentage of family members in their networks (bottom row). Raw data points and error bars represent 97.5 percent credibility intervals for each category of increasing religiosity (left side) and the density interval for the respective posterior distributions and mean parameter estimates for religiosity for each model (right).

Figure 2

The relationship between religiosity (X-axis) and the geographic distance of non-kin (left) and kin (right). More religious women have more geographically diffuse social networks, especially with non-kin. There is a lower probability that a given member of a woman’s social network will live in the same neighborhood if they are more religious (top row). At the same time, more religious women are also more likely to have both kin and non-kin living outside of their neighborhood (i.e., in the same or different municipality) (bottom two rows). Raw data points and error bars represent 97.5 percent credibility intervals for each category of increasing religiosity (left side) and the density interval for the respective posterior distributions and mean parameter estimates for religiosity for each model (right).

Figure 3

The number of relatives providing different types of help. More religious women do not receive additional financial support (top row) or childcare (middle row) from relatives but are more likely to receive emotional support from relatives (bottom row). Raw data points and error bars represent 97.5 percent credibility intervals for each category of increasing religiosity (left side) and the density interval for the respective posterior distributions and mean parameter estimates for religiosity for each model (right).