{"id":281921,"date":"2025-12-08T13:52:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T18:52:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:43:09","slug":"religion-holds-steady-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2025\/12\/08\/religion-holds-steady-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion Holds Steady in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recent polling shows no clear evidence of a religious revival among young adults<\/h2>\n\n\n
About this research<\/summary>\n

This Pew Research Center report summarizes the latest trends in American religion and takes a close look at what is happening with religion among young adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did we do this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center conducts high-quality research to inform the public, journalists and leaders. Studying trends in U.S. religion is a key part of the Center\u2019s long-standing research agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about Pew Research Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did we do this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This report is based on analysis of the Center\u2019s National Public Opinion Reference Surveys<\/a> (NPORS), which are benchmarking surveys of randomly sampled U.S. adults that we have done annually since 2020. The report also includes new analysis of data from the 2023-24 U.S. Religious Landscape Study<\/a>, which is a survey of 36,908 randomly sampled adults conducted from July 17, 2023, to March 4, 2024. The RLS was made possible by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which received support from the Lilly Endowment Inc., Templeton Religion Trust, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This report also draws on data from the General Social Survey<\/a> (GSS) and the American Time Use Survey<\/a> (ATUS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Details about how these surveys were conducted are available at the links above. Information about sample sizes and margins of error<\/a> for groups analyzed in this report is available here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the charts in this report display margins of error with confidence intervals. For information on how to how interpret confidence intervals, refer to our Decoded post<\/a> on the subject.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center polling finds that key measures of religiousness are holding steady in the United States, continuing a period of relative stability that began about five years ago.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shares of U.S. adults who identify with Christianity, with another religion, or with no religion have all remained fairly stable in the Center\u2019s latest polling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Line<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The percentages of Americans who say they pray every day, that religion is very important in their lives, and that they regularly attend religious services also have held fairly steady since 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent stability is striking because it comes after a prolonged period of religious decline<\/a>. For decades, measures of religious belonging, behaving and believing had been dropping nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that the previous long-term declines were driven largely by generational shifts<\/a>. Older \u201cbirth cohorts\u201d (i.e, people born during the same time period) tend to be highly religious. As people in these cohorts have died, they\u2019ve been replaced in the population by younger cohorts of adults who are far less religious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, people in every birth cohort \u2013 from the youngest to the oldest \u2013 have grown less religious as they have aged<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what is happening with religion among young adults today? Some media reports have suggested there may be a religious revival taking place among young adults, especially young men, in the U.S. But our recent polls, along with other high-quality surveys we have analyzed, show no clear evidence that this kind of nationwide religious resurgence is underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On average, young adults remain much less religious than older Americans. Today\u2019s young adults also are less religious than young people were a decade ago. And there is no indication that young men are converting to Christianity in large numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chart<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, it\u2019s possible smaller changes are happening in some places that just aren\u2019t widespread enough to show up in national surveys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, to be sure, there are<\/em> some interesting things happening with religion among young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, young men are now about as religious as women in the same age group. That\u2019s a notable change from the past, when young women tended to be more religious than young men. It also differs from the pattern seen among older people today: Older women are much more religious than older men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this narrowing of the gender gap is driven by declining religiousness among American women<\/a>. It is not a result of increases in the religiousness of men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our recent data also shows that today\u2019s youngest<\/em> adults (those between the ages of roughly 18 and 22) are at least as religious as their immediate predecessors (slightly older people now mostly in their mid- to late-20s). But this is not the first time surveys have found levels of religiousness among the youngest adults that match or exceed those of slightly older adults. As they have aged, recent cohorts of the youngest adults have tended to grow less religious, opening gaps with slightly older adults that did not exist at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the rest of this report, we use the Center\u2019s National Public Opinion Reference Survey<\/a> (NPORS), the 2023-24 U.S. Religious Landscape Study<\/a> (RLS), and other datasets to explore the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n