On religion and public policy: Does Catholicism make a difference?

Abstract. This paper suggests that differences in religious adherence and/or in degrees of secularization between advanced nations may be as relevant to understanding cross-national variance in a wide range of public policy outcomes as the impact of socio-economic and political factors. The prima facie evidence for such a thesis is demonstrated in areas as diverse as welfare expenditure, family policy and labour market policy outcomes, and is shown to have a particular salience wherever gender-related outcomes are at issue. On the basis of this evidence, it is suggested that, in policy outcome terms at least, it is possible to identify a distinctive Catholic family of nations consisting of a grouping of core Western European and Southern European countries.