THE IMPACT OF REGIONAL DISPARITIES AND CH ANGE OF RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION ON RELIGIOUS HOMOGAMY

Doubts are raised if the still dominant phenomena of religious homogam ous marriages in Germany can be interpreted as an indicator of social distance between religious denominations, based on conflicting religio us attitudes and norms. To explain why the amount of interfaith marria ges is still very small in Germany, regional disparities in the denomi national composition of the population and the change of religious aff iliation in the context of marriage are presented as an alternative hy pothesis. Based on odds ratios the trend of religious homogamy in Germ any is analyzed using national statistics. To determine the impact of regional disparities the German Family Survey of 1988 was used, and ef fects of changing affiliation in the international context were studie d using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), 19 91. The observed predominance of religious homogamy can in fact be exp lained almost completely by the regional structure of marriage markets , i.e. by opportunity structures. However, in Germany in contrast to o ther countries, the effect of changing affiliation on religious homoga my seems to be only of minor importance. In contradiction to a frequen tly raised claim, religious affiliation is (or at least has become) qu ite irrelevant for marital. choices in Germany. It seems not to be ver y useful and may in fact be misleading to interpret religious homogamy as an indicator for rules of endogamy or as an indicator of religious preferences concerning the marital partner.