We investigate the extent to which religions' pronatalism is
detrimental to growth via the fertility/education channel. Using
censuses from South-East Asia, we first estimate an empirical model
of fertility and show that having a religious affiliation
significantly raises fertility, especially for couples with
intermediate to high education levels. We next use these estimates
to identify the parameters of a structural model of fertility
choice. On average, catholicism is the most pro-child religion
(increasing total spending on children), followed by Buddhism,
while Islam has a strong pro-birth component (redirecting spending
from quality to quantity). We show that pro-child religions depress
growth in the early stages of growth by lowering savings, physical
capital, and labor supply. These effects account for 10% to 30% of
the actual growth gaps between countries over 1950-1980. At later
stages of growth, pro-birth religions lower human capital
accumulation, explaining between 10% to 20% of the growth gap
between Muslim and Buddhist countries over 1980-2010.