Stability and change of spirituality following childbirth: longitudinal evidence from Swiss Household Panel data using multiple propensity score matching analyses.

INTRODUCTION: The birth of a child typically transcends parents' daily lives and is frequently described as a spiritual experience. Yet, little is known about medium- or long-term effects of becoming parents on individuals' spirituality. Spirituality is commonly conceptualised more broadly than religiosity and can refer to an orientation towards something divine, no matter whether this is a religious being or a non-religious entity. Its lifespan development and responsiveness to life events are not yet systematically understood, and existing evidence often does not allow for causal conclusions. Addressing this research gap, our study seeks to provide robust causal insights on the medium-term stability and change of spirituality following childbirth. METHODS: Using longitudinal pre- and post-birth spirituality data from the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), we compared participants who had become parents for the first time between 2015 and 2018 with propensity score (PS)-matched childless and multiparous parent controls. RESULTS: Across multiple robustness conditions regarding covariate selection, manifest and structural equation modelling analyses suggested a high average medium-term stability in spirituality (r ≥ 0.87; ρ ≥ 0.95) and no average spiritual change following childbirth among the first-time parents (N = 138) compared to the matched controls. DISCUSSION: Given this high average stability, future research should focus on differential trajectories rather than average effects to better understand which individual and situational characteristics influence the development of spirituality following life events.