Data from the American Religious Identification Survey (collected in 2008) reveals some interesting things about the population of Americans that do not identify with organized religions: atheists, agnostics, and the “spiritual but not religious.” Most of the non-religious grew up with religious parents. Only 17% report that neither of their parents identified with a religion:
Being non-religious does not correlate with income or education:
Instead, it’s strongest correlation is with gender. Women are more likely than men to believe in God, more likely to convert to a faith if raised as a non-believer, and less likely to leave a faith they are raised in.
Younger people are also more likely to be non-religious:
Americans with Irish ancestry make up a significant percentage of the non-religious. They account for about 12% of Americans, but about 1/3rd of all non-religious:
More details at American Nones.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 22
Zack — March 11, 2011
Proud to be one of those Irish descended atheists. :)
Leslee Beldotti — March 11, 2011
Proud to be an Irish female atheist. :-D
Kyra — March 11, 2011
So what does "nones" mean? Or am I misreading a letter or two due to the small image size? It keeps showing up in the titles and I don't get it.
Lynne Skysong — March 11, 2011
Hmm, I'm a European mutt and 1/16 Native American. Irish, Polish and German ancestry for sure. It hasn't consciously affected my decision to be agnostic though. Although, I wonder is there's a cultural factor that I may not be part of. I know several of my friends (who were raised in strict religious families) broke away from that as soon as they left at 18 or for college. But I know that's not always the case because i was raised as an occasional church goer with little "religiousness" outside of church.
Libby — March 11, 2011
I'm having a hard time getting past the label "nones." Is there a precedent for this that I'm just unaware of? I want to tell them, "Stop trying to make Nones happen. It's not going to happen!"
Seriously though, I understand their need for a word that encompasses all strictly secular adults, but this one is no good. None implies nothingness, emptiness, a lacking, something I, as a non-religious person, don't feel.
LG — March 11, 2011
I am interested in the ancestry results. In the results, did they only include the most significant answers, or are those 4 answers the only answers from which the subjects could choose? Because most of the world falls into "none of the above".
Kenny — March 11, 2011
(I'm a 23 year-old white/asian atheist). I'm surprised that more than half of the nones (which is a common term in the literature, I assure those who object) are from both-religious parents. This is great news!
Casey — March 11, 2011
See, women are gullible, etc. etc.
fancy lady — March 12, 2011
i'm a 24-year old half-native atheist daughter of an anglican/deist mother (european "mutt" ancestry, but no irish!) and a dad who follows the vague traditions of his first-nations ancestors.
i've felt the pressure from my mother to remain affiliated to some sort of religion but personally find no need, or patience, to believe.
i would tick "no religion" because atheism is a lack of belief, not a religion.
Monday Miscellany – Brett Keller — March 14, 2011
[...] Religion (or lack thereof): Sociological Images presents demographics of the non-religious. [...]
Laura — March 20, 2011
I wonder if some groups are under-represented in the "nones" category because of stronger social/cultural ties to religious groups (rather than mainly belief ties.)
For example (and correct me if I'm wrong about this) a person who is raised Protestant Christian but no longer believes in the tenets of that religion would usually identify as atheist/agnostic/"none," but a person who is raised Jewish is more likely to identify with the cultural/social aspects of the religious traditions and is less likely to identify solely as atheist/agnostic/"none."
Waiting Room Reading 3/17 « Welcome to the Doctor's Office — March 21, 2011
[...] DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE NON-RELIGIOUS by Lisa Wade [...]
Who Is Non-Religious In America? | Disinformation — April 20, 2011
[...] Sociological Images reports on a fascinating study that you may have missed the first time around — the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, which reveals much about the U.S. atheist/agnostic/”spiritual-but-non-religious” population (referred to as Nones). Perhaps what stands out most is just how “normal” the average American non-religious person is. Demographically, Nones look just like broader populace — being non-religious cuts almost uniformly across income and education levels and racial groups (disproving stereotypes of, say, African Americans as being more religious than other groups). [...]