How migration fueled the evangelical boom

Evangelical growth in Brazil’s metropolitan areas is often attributed to the support churches offer migrants in vulnerable situations. Research by Raphael Corbi, Fábio Miessi, and Tiago Ferraz shows a more complex transformation: the arrival of new residents changed the very structure of religious supply in cities.

To distinguish the effects of migration from other social changes, the study tracks displacement caused by fluctuations in international agricultural commodity prices. These shocks affected incomes in producing regions and encouraged migration to cities where networks of contacts were already established.

The effect of new arrivals

In municipalities that received more migrants, the evangelical share of the population grew while the Catholic share declined. The estimates indicate that migration helps explain a significant portion of the evangelical expansion observed between 1980 and 2010.

Lower local incomes played a role, but they were not enough to explain the result. The strongest mechanism appeared on the supply side: evangelical denominations opened churches rapidly, while Catholic structures responded more slowly.

Scale, cost, and urban presence

Smaller, less expensive churches made it possible to establish a presence in growing neighborhoods and increase everyday contact with new audiences. In this sense, organizational and expansion capacity mattered more than any supposedly unique sensitivity of religious demand to poverty.

This conclusion does not deny the churches’ community role. It highlights another dimension of the phenomenon: understanding religious growth also requires attention to costs, territorial strategies, and competition among organizations.