Dr Isabella Kasselstrand has delivered a paper, entitled 'Religious Decline since the Church-State Separation in Sweden' at the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network (NSRN) annual conference.
Hosted online by the University of Ottawa, the Network was founded in 2008 with a view to centralising research on nonreligion and secularity, and providing an international and interdisciplanry forum for discussion.
In her paper, Dr Kasselstrand draws on ISSP data gathered between 1998 and 2018 to analyse the decline in membership of the Church of Sweden following the breaking of ties between the Church and state in 2000.
There are clear trends toward ongoing secularization both within the Church and in the population as a whole
Challenging the hypothesis that those who remain are more pious, Dr Kasselstrand suggests that it is not only the unaffiliated who have become less likely to believe in God, but also the remaining Church of Sweden adherents.
This is because remaining adherents have become less likely to believe in God or a higher power.
For further details on the event, visit the conference page, here.