The objective of this article is to determine the extent to which the evolution of religiosity in Spain and Poland in their post-democratic transition periods has been affected by the process of generational replacement. For Spain data are drawn from several surveys carried out by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Studies (CIS) between 1980 and 1996. For Poland the data come from the Polish General Social Survey and ISSP covering 1992–2008. Results show two radically different patterns of religious change. The fall in religious practice in Spain observed throughout the first 16 years after the political transition was due mostly to the inter-cohort change that affects each new generation born after 1950. In the case of Poland, post-transition change is less marked and due mainly to decline in religious practice on the individual level. The study also observes that the cohorts of Poles born during and after the fall of communism are significantly less religious than older cohorts.
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