Robert Lynch, Ph.D.

My current research with Mary Shenk at Penn State is focused on trying to understand the how religious beliefs and practices impact social capital – the shared norms, common values, trust and reciprocity within groups – and overall cooperation. In modern societies religious affiliation is strongly connected to positive outcomes for children despite the higher reproduction of their religious parents which results in them having more siblings. As societies have developed and modernized these differences between secular and religious families have increased and this effect has been called ‘the paradox of religious fertility’. The reasons for it are unknown but a key to explaining it lies in understanding religion in a broad global context of modernization which has seen a recent rapid decline in births across many developed and increasingly secular countries. This so called fertility crisis is occurring in the midst of globalization, urbanization, rapid technological changes and declining social capital across most of the world. My research with the Shenk research group aims to understand how religious communities promote cooperation and seem to be able to preserve social networks despite these countervailing global trends. Using Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim and secular participants from five different countries I plan to test how the religious practices and or beliefs of parents are able to sustain social capital and thereby achieve the positive social, economic and health outcomes of their children.