What percent of Americans under 40 are Christians?

 A follower on Twitter indicated that he is not Christian and wondered what percent of Americans under 40 are. Well, you know I'm a sucker for that kind of question. The General Social Survey asked people about their religious affiliation in 2018--the latest published data. Here are the results: 

If we add up the numbers for Christians, we get 59%, and it's probably closer to 60% since I did not include "Other", which, for example, probably includes quite a few Mormons, who consider themselves Christians and restorationists, not Protestants. If we we create a table with adults 40 and over we get this:

Added up, 78.2% of older Americans are Christians, so the percentage among young people is dramatically lower. It's not a coincidence that many young people also favor socialism.  

An increase in skepticism among young people?

I've been distributing a questionnaire to students which, among other things, asks them their religion. Quite a few have answered "atheist" which makes me wonder if skepticism is on the increase among young people. It would not surprise me, given the success of New Atheists like Richard Dawkins.

The General Social Survey has been asking about belief in God most survey years since 1988. Here are the percentages for men and women ages 18-29 for the 90s and the past decade:

Percent skeptical--1990s

Men (n = 470)
Atheist 4.9
Agnostic 7.7

Women (n = 571)
Atheist 2.5
Agnostic 3.9


Past decade

Men (n = 644)
Atheist 5.3
Agnostic 10.2

Women (n = 824)
Atheist 1.6
Agnostic 5.3

All categories appear to have increased except for female atheists.

Young adults and gay marriage

There are two themes I've picked up on concerning the gay marriage proposition in California. First, I document a lot of social problems found in the black and Hispanic communities, so it's very pleasant to see something in the positive column; in this case, defending social conservatism.

Second, the pundits are saying that young adults are all on board with this gay marriage stuff: It's only a prejudice among older people. The Voting Behavior: 2004 Election survey asked 1,010 if they thought gay people should be able to get married. The results are shown above.

Unless young people have shifted significantly since the last election, they are not all for gay marriage-it's evenly split. Yes, age is important here, but pundits are exaggerating trends among young adults. I don't know how much stock to put into this exit poll, but supposedly 60% of Californians under 30 were against Proposition 2008. Sixty percent in a liberal state is probably consistent with 50% nationwide.

The culture war is not only among the old fogies.

Oh, and while I'm at it, God bless the Mormon Church for taking a stand on an important moral issue. We need more churches to tell Hollywood, we don't take cues on morality from you. All you alcoholics and sex and drug addicts should be taking them from us.

Ideal family size among young Americans: Let's get a look at the future by examining ideal family size as reported by young people. According to my analysis of General Social Survey data, the mean ideal number of kids for white Americans ages 18-25 is 2.55 for girls 2.47 for guys. These means are a little higher than for older people.

Here is the breakdown for young whites (N = 416):

Ideal family size--percentages

Men
0 1.5
1 3.6
2 53.3
3 29.4
4 5.1
5 0.5
6 0.0
7+ 0.5
As many as one wants 6.1

Women
0 0.5
1 2.3
2 47.9
3 31.5
4 8.2
5 0.0
6 0.5
7+ 0.0
As many as one wants 9.1

Two children is clearly the modal category for both sexes.

And for young Hispanics (N = 94)?

Ideal family size--percentages

0 1.1
1 0.0
2 33.0
3 35.1
4 22.3
5 2.1
6 2.1
7+ 1.1
As many as one wants 3.2

Unlike whites, a large number of Hispanics feel that 4 kids is ideal, and small percentages even give a higher number. The Hispanic mean is 3.01--one-half child more than for young whites.

In this decade, the moral values of young people are not becoming more liberal

The values of young adults are interesting, especially since they give us a sense of the direction in which we are heading. In 2005, it looked to me like young Americans were developing more conservative moral attitudes. As you can see on the two graphs above, the second-to-last point is 2004, and there were big drops in favoring abortion for any reason and approving of homosexuality among those ages 18-30. Well, that year looks to be anomalous, because the numbers jumped back up in 2006, and are more consistent with overall trends. Support for abortion on demand has fallen from its peak in 1993 (49.3%) down to 37% in 2006, and a after a clear value shift in the 90s in favor of homosexuality, support has plateaued at about 43%. The speed at which Americans have reversed certain values is striking. The majority of young Americans went from believing that premarital sex was wrong to feeling it was right in the 5 years surrounding 1970 (graph not shown), and from 1988 to 1998, the percent thinking that nothing is wrong with homosexuality went from 16.0% to 44% among those ages 18 to 30.