Despite less than half of Americans ranking religion as an important part of their daily life, America is still more devout when it comes to religion than its economic peers, such as the United Kingdom or Germany, new data from Gallup shows.
The data, published by Gallup last Thursday, show that the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily lives has fallen from 66% in 2015 to 49% today. This 17-point decline ranks among the largest declines in religiosity Gallup has recorded in any country over a 10-year period since 2007.
Gallup researchers defined America as having a “medium-high” Christian identity but “middling” religiosity.
The share of Americans who now identify as Christian in America is more similar to countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland and Denmark, which have strong Protestant traditions. The role religion plays in daily American life remains much larger than in those countries and is more similar to countries like Argentina, Ireland, Poland, and Italy, where Catholicism is more influential, researchers note.
Out of more than 160 countries polled by Gallup since 2007, only 14 have experienced drops of over 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year period.
Only a small number of nations have also experienced larger losses in religiosity. They include Greece, which declined by 28 points from 2013-2023; Italy fell by 23% from 2012-2022; and Poland experienced as 22% loss in religiosity from. Chile, Turkey and Portugal have also seen declines in religiosity similar to the U.S.
A previous Gallup analysis in 2021 showed that while the U.S. remains a highly religious nation with seven in 10 claiming affiliation with some kind of organized religion, fewer than half said they held formal membership in a specific house of worship for the first time in nearly 80 years.
In 2020, economist and researcher Lyman Stone also warned that unless fertility rates are increased among the faithful, religious communities in the U.S. could continue on a path toward “terminal decline.” Stone added that while religious communities in the U.S. are experiencing “terminal decline,” it doesn’t have to continue on that path.
“Declining religion is not about adults making a decision to leave religion. It’s not about the deeply considered rational choices of people who’ve decided to leave the Church. The vast majority of declining religiosity in America is happening to 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds [and] 16-year-olds. It’s happening to minors while they are at home,” Stone argued.
Across all generations, Stone noted that religiosity tended to dip during the secondary years but because older generations were more religious than later generations, it could account for their higher reports of continued religiosity.
He suggested that a secondary school education system that is more supportive of religion was found to be another critical factor in maintaining religiosity, along with having two parents of the same religion.
“For virtually all religious groups the fertility is the overwhelming source of growth,” he said.
A share of people born into any religious tradition is going to leave that tradition, Stone explained, and if fewer people are born into that tradition, the population that is left in that community will naturally grow smaller.
“Ultimately, what we see is as the absolute size of a religious community shrinks, the household environment for transmission becomes more difficult, which means the only small religions that survive are those with very aggressive norms for household transmission,” he said. “That is with very strong practices of household religious faith.”
