Religion and the Welfare State: Testing the Manow Hypothesis

This paper analyzes the impact of religious doctrines on the size and the institutional structure of Western welfare systems. We examine the hypothesis that Christian denominations (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Free Protestant) exert a persistent influence on the size and structure of Western welfare states. This hypothesis, advocated in a series of papers by German political scientist Philip Manow, will be termed the “Manow hypothesis” for short. We use 1995 to 2015 data on welfare spending for a broad variety of countries and a specific panel data technique to assess this hypothesis empirically. Our results show that a country’s dominant confession significantly impacts welfare arrangements, once socio-economic and political factors are controlled for. Protestantism of both varieties (Lutheranism and Free Protestantism) shows a limiting effect on welfare spending compared to Roman Catholicism. Additionally, countries with an Established Church tend to provide transfers in kind rather than in cash.