The vast majority of Americans were raised in a religion. Fully 86% say that as children, they identified with Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam or another religion. Just 13% of U.S. adults say that as children, they did not identify with any religion.
The Religious Landscape Study (RLS) shows, furthermore, that 68% of U.S. adults say they grew up attending religious services at least once or twice a month, including 56% who say they went at least once a week.
Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say they received at least some formal religious education as children, attending either a private religious school or other religious education programs such as Sunday school or CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine). This includes 35% of Americans who received a lot of formal religious education (seven or more years attending either type).
In addition, 45% of Americans say religion was very important to their family when they were children.
The survey shows a clear relationship between people’s religious upbringing and how religious they are now. People raised in highly religious families are more likely to be religious themselves as adults.
For example, among adults who say religion was very important to their family when they were children, 55% say religion is very important in their own lives today. Far fewer people who grew up in families in which religion was less important say it is very important in their own lives today.
Still, growing up in a religious home is no guarantee that a person will view religion as very important as an adult. Among adults who say they were raised in homes where religion was very important to their family, 24% say religion is somewhat important to them today, and an additional 20% say it is not too important or not at all important.
Age plays a role in how people answer these questions. The younger they are, the less likely U.S. adults are to say they were raised in religious homes. And the “stickiness” of a religious upbringing may be declining: In general, younger U.S. adults who were raised in highly religious homes are less religious today than older U.S. adults who were raised in highly religious homes.
Read more in this chapter about:
- Childhood religious identity
- Religious service attendance during childhood
- Importance of religion during childhood
- Childhood religious education
- Age differences in religious upbringing
- Connection between religious upbringing and religious outcomes
- Age differences in the ‘stickiness’ of religious upbringing
While this chapter includes data on U.S. adults’ religious affiliation and attendance at religious services as children – and on the importance of religion to them while they were growing up – you can read more about U.S. adults’ current levels of religious affiliation in Chapter 1, about current levels of religious attendance in Chapter 8, and about religion’s current importance to adults in Chapter 7.
Childhood religious identity
The vast majority of U.S. adults – 86% – say they were raised in a religion. This includes 80% who were raised as Christians and an additional 6% who were raised in other, non-Christian religions.
Overall, 46% of U.S. adults say they were raised as Protestants, and 30% say they were raised as Catholics. Smaller shares were raised as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as Mormons (2%); Orthodox Christians (1%); and Jehovah’s Witnesses (1%).
Among the survey’s respondents, 2% say they were raised Jewish by religion, 1% say they were raised Muslim, 1% were raised Buddhist, and 1% grew up Hindu.
In addition, 1% of U.S. adults say they were raised as atheists, 1% were raised as agnostics, and 11% say they were raised in no particular religion.
Religious service attendance during childhood
A majority of U.S. adults (56%) say they went to religious services weekly or more often as children, and an additional 11% say they grew up going to religious services once or twice a month.
Looking just at people raised as Christians, 78% say they grew up going to church at least monthly, including 63% who say they went at least weekly.
People raised in religions other than Christianity report having attended religious services at lower rates as children.
Among people who say they were raised religiously unaffiliated, 17% say they grew up going to religious services at least monthly.
Importance of religion during childhood
Overall, 45% of U.S. adults say that religion was very important to their family when they were growing up.
Looking just at people who were raised as Christians, half say religion was very important to their family when they were children, including 49% of those raised Protestant and 51% of those raised Catholic.
Among U.S. adults raised in non-Christian religions, the shares who say religion was very important to their family when they were children range from 27% among those raised Buddhist to 66% among those raised Muslim.
Most adults who were raised without a religious affiliation say religion was not too or not at all important to their family when they were growing up (69%), while 15% say religion was very important to their family.
Far fewer Americans say religion was very important to them personally when they were children than say it was very important to their family while they were growing up. This pattern is seen among people raised in a wide variety of religious traditions.
Childhood religious education
Most Americans (69%) say they received at least some formal religious education as children. This includes 62% of U.S. adults who say that as children, they attended Sunday school, CCD or some other kind of religious education for one to three years (20%), four to six years (13%), or seven or more years (28%).
Fewer people (24%) say they attended a private religious school as a child for at least one to three years.
We combined these two questions (about attendance at Sunday school or other religious education programs, and attendance at private religious schools) to construct a scale measuring levels of religious education.
According to the scale, 35% of U.S. adults received a lot of religious education, meaning they attended either a private religious school or an extracurricular religious program for seven or more years.
An additional 18% received a fair amount of religious education. By this we mean people who attended private religious school or religious education programs (or both) for four to six years, as well as those who attended one to three years of both kinds of programs.
Another 16% of Americans received a little religious education – meaning they attended a private religious school for one to three years or an extracurricular religious program for one to three years.
Three-in-ten Americans say they received no religious education as children.44
Among people who were raised as Christians, 41% received a lot of religious education when they were growing up, as did 37% of people raised Jewish. Smaller shares of people raised in other religions received a lot of religious education as children.
Most people who were raised religiously unaffiliated say they had no formal religious education as children.
Age differences in religious upbringing
Older adults are generally more likely than younger adults to have been raised with religion in their lives, according to several measures in the survey. For example, 94% of people born before 1950 say they were raised in a religion, compared with 81% of those born from 1990 to 1999, and 75% of adults born between 2000 and 2006.
There’s a similar age-related pattern when it comes to attendance at religious services when growing up and receiving a lot of formal religious education as children.
The survey’s question about the importance of religion to people’s families while they were growing up is an exception to this pattern. The youngest adults are no less likely than the oldest adults to say religion was very important to their family while they were children.
Connection between religious upbringing and religious outcomes
People who say they were raised in religious homes are more likely – compared with people who were not raised that way – to be religious in adulthood.
For example, there are more religious service attenders among people who say they grew up going to religious services at least monthly than among people who didn’t attend religious services as often growing up (40% vs. 17%).
Similarly, U.S. adults who say religion was very important to their family when they were children are more apt to say religion is very important in their lives today than are people raised in homes where religion was less important.
Moreover, the survey shows that among people raised Protestant or Catholic, those who grew up in highly religious environments have retained their childhood religious identity at higher rates than those who were raised in less religious families.
For example, among people who were raised Protestant and grew up attending church monthly in families in which religion was very important, 80% still identify as Protestant today. By contrast, among people who were raised Protestant and grew up attending church a few times a year or less often in families in which religion was not very important, 57% are still Protestant today.
But many people raised in a religious home don’t grow up to be particularly religious. For example, among Catholics who were raised in religious families, three-in-ten are now either religiously unaffiliated (16%) or identify with a religion other than Catholicism (15%).
Age differences in the ‘stickiness’ of a religious upbringing
In general, the survey data also suggests that a religious upbringing is less “sticky” among today’s young adults than among older age groups.
Importance of religion
People in the youngest cohorts of adults who were raised in families in which religion was very important are far less likely than older adults raised in such families to say religion is very important to them now.
Religious affiliation
Among people who were raised as Protestants, older adults are more likely to still identify with Protestantism today than are younger Americans. For example, roughly eight-in-ten adults born in the 1950s or earlier who were raised Protestant still identify that way today, compared with roughly six-in-ten adults born since 1980 who were raised Protestant.
Among people who were raised Catholic, six-in-ten or more who were born in the 1960s or earlier are still Catholic today, compared with about half of those who were born in the 1980s or later.
The pattern plays out differently for religious “nones,” in that older U.S. adults who were raised religiously unaffiliated are less likely to still be religiously unaffiliated than are younger adults who were raised that way.
Attendance at religious services
Among those born in 1949 or earlier who grew up attending religious services at least monthly, more than half (53%) say they still attend monthly today. That’s a far higher rate of religious attendance than is reported by adults born in the 1980s (35%), the 1990s (33%), or born between 2000 and 2006 (35%).
