Francesco Molteni

• PhD
• Assistant professor at University of Milan

PAPERBACK VERSION FINALLY AVAILABLE: https://brill.com/display/title/57527 In "A Need for Religion: Insecurity and Religiosity in the Contemporary World" Francesco Molteni tries to answer one of the broadest questions for scholars of religion: why is religiosity declining in developed countries? He does so by inspecting all the different nuances o...

Although Christian migrant groups make up a sizeable part of the immigrant population in Europe, little is known about their religiosity. This paper studies patterns of intergenerational change and proposes and tests hypotheses that specify when and why changes across generations are stronger. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018)...

Nothing puzzles sociologists of religion more than the reasons and the patterns behind religious change. In the literature on secularization processes, it is broadly accepted that ongoing modernization has undermined many of the pillars of institutional religions, leading to widespread religious decline. While a considerable body of research invest...

This research delves into the gender disparities observed in sport participation among immigrant groups, aiming to enhance our understanding of the underlying factors contributing to these gaps. Specifically, the study examines the impact of parental origin-country gender inequality and Muslim majority (‘cultural legacy’) and the adaptation to host...

Explaining the reasons—while not the causes—behind religious decline is a central issue for sociologists interested in secularization processes. Many theoretical perspectives have been proposed over the last decades, and this article focuses on one of them. In particular, it refers to the so-called insecurity theory, formalized by Norris and Ingleh...

According to cultural assimilation theories, immigrants generally tend to adopt the values and attitudes of the native population, as seen in areas such as gender equality, religiosity, and trust. This study analyzes immigrants' attitudes toward immigrant groups using European Values Study data, finding strong evidence for cultural assimilation. Ov...

This paper contributes to the debate on the role of religiosity in party competition in democratic political systems by analyzing the role of religious practice and belonging in the 2022 Italian elections. By using the newest Italian National Election Studies dataset, we combine indicators of both religious affiliation and practice to show how the...

Perceived discrimination is the feeling of belonging to a group targeted by discrimination. This paper examines three mechanisms identified in the literature that contribute to this perception among migrants: exposure to actual discrimination through social contacts, language proficiency and awareness, and unmet aspirations. Using a subset of the E...

Perceived discrimination is the feeling of belonging to a group targeted by discrimination. This paper examines three mechanisms identified in the literature that contribute to this perception among migrants: exposure to actual discrimination through social contacts, language proficiency and awareness, and unmet aspirations. Using a subset of the E...

Previous research has shown that Italian women with family responsibilities are considerably less likely to participate in the labor market compared to men. However, most studies have focused on the native population, disregarding whether in the Italian context women with an immigrant background face the same or worse difficulties in reconciling wo...

After years of deepening of the so-called European social dimension, green policies to reduce pollution and mitigate the consequences of climate change have recently taken pride of place in the EU’s agenda. What do citizens think of EU green and social policy objectives? Do public preferences for these two policy areas relate, or, by contrast, do t...

This chapter deals with the exceptional case of immigrant religious assimilation in Greece. Within the European context of immigration countries characterised by ongoing secularisation process and immigrant assimilation towards natives’ values and attitudes, Greece is considered as a particular case because of the tendency of immigrants to assimila...

Secularization theory allows for transitory religious revivals under certain conditions, such as extreme societal crises or state weakness. The country of Georgia has witnessed the largest religious revival of Orthodox countries and one of the most striking religious resurgences worldwide. This paper gives both a statistical and historical descript...

This article contributes to the quality of life literature by investigating gender and age gaps in psycho-physiological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Specifically, we investigate whether women experienced higher levels of distress than men, and if such gap can be explained by a greater negative reaction of women in the experience...

Despite the long-lasting interest in religious change, debates on the topic have been heated and are still far from being settled. In order to provide a reliable data source through which to study these dynamics, the CARPE project harmonizes well-known international surveys containing items concerning religiosity (the ESS, Eurobarometer, EVS, ISSP...

While official science has given its answer to the question on the origin of the Coronavirus (animal to human transmission), alternative theories on human creation of the virus – purposely or inadvertently – have flourished. Those alternative theories can be easily located among the family of conspiracy theories, as they always assume some secretiv...

Population aging is particularly pronounced in Italy. Recently, home-care services emerged as one of the desirable strategy when dealing with such situations of fra-gility. In this framework, we present the evaluation of a home-care service which was experimentally implemented by Fondazione Sacra Famiglia and Casa di Cura Ambrosiana in the 2017-201...

When analyzing the relationship between individual religiosity and attitudes toward immigration, empirical research often leads to contrasting findings. By focusing on contemporary Italy, our contribution aims to provide evidence of two opposite effects that religiosity can exert on attitudes toward immigration. On the one hand, belonging to a reli...

While scholars have often pointed to the fact that France might be an exceptionally irreligious country, this hypothesis has not yet been tested with longitudinal data; and nor have researchers tried to account for this alleged irreligiosity. The present article tries to fill this gap in the literature by comparing France to other Catholic countrie...

Given the sharp increase in migration flows, the issue of immigrants’ religious assimilation and its impact on integration and discrimination has become a hot topic. This article refers to the debate between assimilation and reaction theories in order to shed light on the ef-fects of both the destination context and the passage of time on immigrant...

The social and political implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are receiving increasing attention in the literature. This article aims to contribute to this fast-growing research programme by focusing on the degree to which Italian citizens perceive democratic institutions as effective in coping with crises like the COVID-19 emergency. We put forwa...

Faced with an unforeseen event such as the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, social research is called to monitor its consequences on public opinion. The article briefly describes the ResPOnsE COVID-19 project (Risposta dell’Opinione Pubblica all’Emergenza COVID-19) that the SPS TREND laboratory at the State University of Milan developed with this aim. To recon...

In recent decades, scholars have been increasingly interested in analysing immigrants’ religiosity in Europe. In this article, we provide evidence about how the patterns of religious transmission are shaped by religious characteristics of both the origin and receiving contexts. We do so by focusing on Italy, which is both an almost homogeneously Ca...

The impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on the lives of many is indisputable. Among the possible strategies to cope with the feeling of insecurity that comes with this, religion can play a significant role. Using firsthand data from the ResPOnsE COVID-19 rolling cross-section survey, this article shows that Italian people who reported a COVID-19...

This article contributes to a better theoretical and empiric understanding of mixed results in the literature investigating the relationship between institutional confidence and adherence to recommended measures during a pandemic. The article relies on Structural Equation Models based on data from ResPOnsE Covid-19, a Rolling Cross-Section (RCS) su...

Monitoring of public opinion during Covid-19 pandemic in Italy

In this article, we present an application of the rolling cross-section (RCS) design to monitor changes in public opinion during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy (ResPOnsE Covid-19 project, University of Milan Statale). The RCS is a dynamic survey tool used predominantly in the analyses of public opinion during electoral campaigns. Because of its dyn...

The rise of anti-immigration attitudes spreading around Europe is a hot topic in both the academia and the public discourse. The literature is quite consistent in interpreting this change in the light of the competitive threats perceived by the majority of population. This contribution adopts a longitudinal framework and reads the evolution of anti...

Religious change continues to be a controversial topic that involves both theoretical and methodological issues. As to the European context, the main dispute is between secularization and individualization theory, especially considering the ‘believing without belonging’ thesis. This article will tackle this dispute given these three choices: firstl...

The outbreak of «Big Data» has triggered a widespread debate about their potential use as substitute of more traditional methodologies like surveys. Despite this outward dichotomy, recent methodological innovations open the field to potential integration between the two. This integration can concern either the survey design stage (explorative integ...

Google Scholar is an appealing data source for the measurement of scientific production in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) fields. Its appeal derives from its extensive coverage of the literature. This contrasts with issues of data quality, which are still quite controversial. This chapter aims to evaluate the reliability and validity of b...

The situation of the former communist countries represents an anomaly within the sociological debate about the various secularisation processes currently underway in Europe. The main issues relate to whether or not Eastern Europe has experienced a religious revival following the fall of communism and, if so, which dimensions of religiosity are most...

The article aims to investigate the relationship between individual religiosity and attitudes towards government responsibility for citizens’ welfare. The rationale for such a relationship stems from the idea that religion and government spending can be intended as substitute mechanisms that may insure individuals against negative life events. We t...

Religion, welfare regimes and attitudes toward government responsibility for citizens’ welfare. A European comparative analysis By Renzo Carriero, Marianna Filandri and Francesco Molteni Section 18: Drawing the Boundaries of Southern Europe: Issues and Challenges PAnel 099: Economy and Welfare in Post-crisis Southern Europe

--> full book here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345805351_A_Need_for_Religion_Insecurity_and_Religiosity_in_the_Contemporary_World and here https://brill.com/display/title/57527 <-- Religious change in Europe continues to be a controversial topic. The main disputes regard if and how Europe is experiencing processes of secularization...

Eastern Europe is one of the areas where the debate on religious change and individual-level secularization has been recently more intense. The attempt to explain religious developments in this part of Europe has brought to a fierce competition among the main theories of religious change (secularization, individualization and market theory). An add...

Sepsis is a rapidly evolving disease with a high mortality rate. The early identification of sepsis and the implementation of early evidence-based therapies have been recognized to improve outcome and decrease sepsis-related mortality. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of the standard diagnostic work-up of septic patients with an in...

Aims: Contradictory information exists on whether different clinical guidelines are effective in detecting the malignant risk in patients with pancreatic cysts. We have retrospectively evaluated the accuracy and the long-term outcome in patients with pancreatic cysts with a diameter ≥ 2 cm when indication for surgery was established by clinical eva...

A methodologically fashioned way to asses trends for different dimensions of religiosity