Religious competition, cultural change, and domestic violence: evidence from Colombia

Abstract We study how religious competition—defined as the entry of a religious organization with innovative worship practices into a predominantly Catholic municipality—affects domestic violence. Using municipality-level data from Colombia and a two-way fixed effects design, we find that the arrival of the first non-Catholic church leads to a significant reduction in reported cases of domestic violence. We argue that religious competition incentivizes churches to adopt and diffuse norms and practices that more effectively discourage such violence. Effects are largest in municipalities with smaller, younger, and more homogeneous populations—contexts that facilitate both intense competition and norm diffusion. Consistent with this mechanism, areas with more new non-Catholic churches exhibit greater rejection of domestic violence, particularly among the religiously observant, and higher female labor force participation. These findings contribute to the literature on the cultural determinants of domestic violence by identifying religious competition as a catalyst for cultural change.