Posted on 08/20/2011 10:40:22 PM PDT by decimon
LAS VEGAS — While religious service attendance has decreased for all white Americans since the early 1970s, the rate of decline has been more than twice as high for those without college degrees compared to those who graduated from college, according to new research to be presented at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
"Our study suggests that the less educated are dropping out of the American religious sector, similarly to the way in which they have dropped out of the American labor market," said lead researcher W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia.
The study focuses on whites because black and Latino religiosity is less divided by education and income. Most whites who report a religious affiliation are Catholics, evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Mormons, or Jews.
Relying on nationally representative data from the General Social Survey and the National Survey of Family Growth, the study finds that moderately educated whites—those who have a high school degree but who did not graduate from a 4-year college—attended religious services in the 1970s at about the same rate as the most educated whites—those who at a minimum graduated from a 4-year college—but they attended at much lower frequencies in the 2000s.
The least educated white Americans—those who did not graduate from high school—attended religious services less frequently than both the moderately educated and most educated in the 1970s and that remained the case in the 2000s. "The least educated have been consistently less religiously engaged than even the moderately educated, meaning the gap between the least educated and most educated is even larger than the one between the moderately educated and most educated," Wilcox said.
In the 1970s, among those aged 25-44, 51 percent of college-educated whites attended religious services monthly or more, compared to 50 percent of moderately educated whites, and 38 percent of the least educated whites. In the 2000s, among those aged 25-44, 46 percent of college-educated whites attended monthly or more, compared to 37 percent of moderately educated whites, and 23 percent of the least educated whites.
Wilcox views this disengagement among the less educated as troubling because religious institutions typically provide their members with benefits—such as improved physical and psychological health, social networks, and civic skills—that may be particularly important for the less educated, who often lack the degree of access to social networks and civic skills that the college-educated have.
"Today, the market and the state provide less financial security to the less educated than they once did, and this is particularly true for the moderately educated—those who have high school degrees, but didn't graduate from a 4-year college," Wilcox said. "Religious congregations may be one of the few institutional sectors less educated Americans can turn to for social, economic, and emotional support in the face of today's tough times, yet it appears that increasingly few of them are choosing to do so."
The study also shows that Americans with higher incomes attend religious services more often, and those who have experienced unemployment at some point over the past 10 years attend less often. In addition, the study finds that those who are married (especially if they have children), those who hold more conservative views toward premarital sex, and those who lost their virginity later than their peers, attend religious services more frequently.
Indeed, the study points out that modern religious institutions tend to promote a family-centered morality that valorizes marriage and parenthood, and they embrace traditional middle-class virtues such as self-control, delayed gratification, and a focus on education.
Over the past 40 years, however, the moderately educated have become less likely to hold familistic beliefs and less likely to get and stay married, compared to college-educated adults. During the same period, wages have fallen and rates of unemployment have risen markedly for moderately educated men, while wages have remained stagnant for moderately educated women. For the least educated—those without high school degrees—the economic situation has been even worse, and they have also become less likely to hold familistic beliefs and less likely to get and stay married, compared to college-educated adults.
Because less educated whites are now less likely to be stably employed, to earn a decent income, to be married with children, and to hold familistic views, it makes sense that they also do not as often attend services at religious institutions that continue to uphold conventional norms, Wilcox said.
"While we recognize that not everyone wishes to worship, and that religious diversity can be valuable, we also think that the existence of a large group of less educated Americans that is increasingly disconnected from religious institutions is troubling for our society," said Andrew Cherlin, co-author of the study and a professor of sociology and public policy at the Johns Hopkins University. "This development reinforces the social marginalization of less educated Americans who are also increasingly disconnected from the institutions of marriage and work."
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About the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.
The paper, "No Money, No Honey, No Church: The Deinstitutionalization of Religious Life Among the White Working Class," will be presented on Sunday, Aug. 21, at 2:30 p.m. PDT in Caesars Palace Las Vegas, at the American Sociological Association's 106th Annual Meeting.
To obtain a copy of the paper; for more information on other ASA presentations; or for assistance reaching the study's authors, members of the media can contact Daniel Fowler at pubinfo@asanet.org or (202) 527-7885. During the Annual Meeting (Aug. 20-23), ASA's Public Information Office staff can be reached in the press room, located in the Sorrento Room of Caesars Palace, at (702) 866-1916 or (914) 450-4557 (cell).
This news release was written by Mary Griffin, ASA Office of Public Affairs and Public Information.
That’s impossible! Atheists are the smartest people in the world - just ask them.
Thank the internet. Stupid people tend to believe the atheist evangelists who infest the internet like a cancer. Rather than critically examining the claims made by these individuals, the stupid will tend to succumb to the internet style of appeal to ridicule fallacy.
And people are miserable and unhappy. Women have 5 children all of which have different last names, people are popping pills for all sorts of issues, abortions are common place, we have flash mobs of violence etc.
Not attending church doesn't necessarily mean being atheist. There seems to be a lot of people fed up with churches because they are religious.
I recently posted something similar to this. That was a study dispelling the notion that people become less religious as they become more educated.
My guess is that there are two main causes for this: 1) the Hollywood/Public School system/University brainwashing is succeeding and 2) those who remain religious are becoming disgusted with many denominations’ fall into apostasy and feminism (a little redundant, I know).
That the lack of religion in their lives leads to trouble and amoral social norms, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will fall back in social status due to risky behavior; while those who attend service regularly are less likely to engage in risky behavior because they have stronger moral cohesion.
But that's just a theory...
it makes sense. The welfare state has replaced faith as a source of “comfort”. When the welfare state gives you food, tv and clothes, you cease thinking beyond putting your snout in the trough.
it’s not the ‘net. The least educated folks will not be online but in front of their television sets watching the lowest possible TV shows. This is not “atheism”, but just “I don’t care ism”. These are hardly the atheist philosophers and could barely elucidate what they do besides “uh”
True, there needs to be a solid faith formed in bedrock, continuing preaching as it has for 2000 years.
Hardly a theory — your statement was proven by the UK riots.
Romanticism/feminism have been rough on families formerly practicing their traditional belief systems in western culture countries. Those families are quite scattered, and most, no longer able to compete but only to try to survive.
We’re more ancient Roman or European Renaissance in some facets of social/religious nature, and most well-to-do folks don’t have any complaint about that. That’s one of the reasons that I, for example, left my former religion and became more monotheistic. See some of the leading men of early America and why they were “deists.” ...and why Puritans, Huguenots, all, got a little closer for a short time. Then...the effects of further floods from Europe later on (1800s, holidays, etc.).
Maybe there’s a big change ahead for all.
“That’s impossible! Atheists are the smartest people in the world - just ask them.”
Well...We are!
;0)
Modest, too.
;0P
So proud of this missive it is authored by “UNKNOWN”?
Have to wonder how many of the “educated” are there for family/social/business/professional reasons, rather than any real conviction.
Also have to wonder how many others of them are there for ‘activist’ subvertive reasons.
OTOH, plenty of educated people—FReepers included—won’t set foot in any local church reasonably available to them because of the liberal doctrines taught in them; yet they are deeply religous.
As for the less educated, there are already plenty of comments above.
Jesus came to make ALL religion obsolete.. AND DID!!!..
Many are starting to “git it”...
If you give them $10 Million dollars, they will invent another "study" to "prove" it.
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