Race/Ethnic and Social-Demographic Correlates of Religious Non-Involvement in America

Abstract

Our study investigates racial/ethnic differences in religious non-involvement using data from three national probability surveys: 2000 Social Capital Survey, 2004 National Politics Study, and the 2007 Religious Landscape Survey. Three measures of religious involvement are investigated: service attendance, religious denomination, and religious identification. We consistently find that non-Hispanic White, Hispanic, and Asian Americans are more likely than African Americans and African Caribbean Americans to identify as religiously non-involved. The central role of religion and faith communities in the lives of persons of African Americans and African Caribbeans may help explain the relatively lower levels of religious non-involvement among these groups. Other social-demographic characteristics also consistently predict religious non-involvement. Along these lines, we have fairly strong evidence that age cohort maintains a stronger relationship with rarely attending worship services among African Americans than among Hispanic and Asian Americans. That age cohort differentially maintains such relationships likely has implications for how we are to understand future growth projections for religious non-involvement in the United States.