Religious demographics in America

Here are some interesting stats on religion in America:

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Which groups are the net winners and losers in the dynamic process of shifting religious affiliation?
By comparing the distribution of the current religious affiliations of U.S. adults with their childhood
religious affiliations, the Landscape Survey is able to provide a clear sense of the net effect of
these movements within American religion.

The group that has experienced the greatest net loss by far is the Catholic Church. Overall, 31.4% of U.S. adults say that they were raised Catholic. Today, however, only 23.9% of adults identify with the Catholic
Church, a net loss of 7.5 percentage points.

How can this decline in the percentage of Catholics be reconciled with the findings from the
General Social Surveys discussed in Chapter 1 that show that roughly the same proportion of
the population is Catholic today as was Catholic in the early 1970s? Part of the answer is that the
Catholic Church has also attracted a good number of converts. But the main answer is immigration.
The many people who have left the Catholic Church over the years have been replaced, to a great
extent, by the large number of Catholic immigrants coming to the U.S.

Overall, 2.6% of the U.S. adult population has switched their affiliation to Catholic after being raised in another faith or in no faith at all. But nearly four times as many people (10.1% of the adult population overall) were raised in the Catholic Church but have since left for another faith or for no faith at all.

It is also interesting to see which childhood faiths people leave behind. Most people who have
changed their affiliation to one of the Protestant traditions, for instance, are people who were
raised in another Protestant denominational family. But overall nearly one-in-ten Protestants were
raised in the Catholic Church.

Roughly half of those raised as Protestant (52%) retain their childhood religious affiliation, but
this comparatively low number relative to other groups is largely due to the fact that the change
figures reported here include movement between Protestant denominational families. In fact,
of the 48% of people who were raised Protestant but now belong to something other than the
denomination in which they were raised, the majority of them now belong to another Protestant
denomination. Overall, then, 80% of those who were raised as Protestant are still Protestant,
either within the same denominational family in which they were raised (52%) or within another
Protestant family (28%). So only one-in-five (20%) adults who were raised as Protestant have left
Protestantism altogether (7% for a non-Protestant religion and 13% for no religion at all).

Of all of the Protestant families, Baptists, Adventists and Lutherans have the highest retention
rates, at roughly 60% each. The Holiness, Anabaptist and Congregationalist families, by contrast,
have much lower retention rates, below 40% each. All Protestant denominational families lose
a considerable number of childhood adherents to the ranks of the unaffiliated (ranging from 7%
among those raised Anabaptist to 20% among those raised in Congregationalist and Anglican/
Episcopal churches).

The data also show that among those who have left largely evangelical denominational families
for other Protestant families, more have become members of other largely evangelical families
compared with the number who have become members of largely mainline families. By contrast,
those leaving largely mainline denominational families are more evenly divided, with approximately
equal numbers joining other largely mainline families and largely evangelical families.

Two of the religious groups with the lowest retention rates are Jehovah’s Witnesses and Buddhists.
Only slightly more than a third (37%) of adults who were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses still
identify themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Half of all of those who were raised as Buddhists
(50%) are still Buddhists.

As mentioned previously, the group that has exhibited the strongest growth as a result of
changes in affiliation is the unaffiliated population. Nevertheless, the overall retention rate of the
unaffiliated population is relatively low (46%) compared with other groups. This means that more
than half (54%) of those who were not affiliated with any particular religion as a child now identify
themselves as members of one religion or another.

http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-chapter-2.pdf

Major differences are also apparent in the proportion of each age group that has no formal religious
affiliation. Adults under age 30 are more than three times as likely as those age 70 and older to
be unaffiliated with any particular religion (25% vs. 8%). The younger group is also more likely
than the adult population as a whole to be atheist or agnostic (7% vs. 4%). It is important to note,
however, that more than a third (35%) of young adults who have no particular religious affiliation
are in the “religious unaffiliated” category, that is, they say that religion is somewhat important
or very important in their lives.

http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-chapter-3.pdf