The Relationship Between Religiosity and Age

FIGURES OF RELIGIOSITY AND AGE:

• Voas:

  • People born before 1945 are more likely to state that they have no doubt God exists, or that they believe in God despite having doubts.

  • Those in the group born after 1975 were twice as likely as the older group to state they didn’t believe in God.

• YouGov survey of young people 2013:

  • Only 25% said they believed in God.

  • 38% said they didn’t.

  • 41% thought that religion was the cause of more harm than good in the world.

  • 14% thought that religion was, on balance, a good thing.

THE INTEREST OF THE YOUNG:

• Williams and Lindsay:

  • Young people are interested in the spiritual, especially the deprived.

  • But they regard spirituality differently to the middle classes, who equate it to personal growth, or the older generation, who equate it with God.

• Olson:

  • In a deprived neighbourhood of East Manchester, deprivation intersects with age to bring about a privatised form of ‘crisis religiosity’.

• These young people are generally indifferent to institutionalised religion and to questions about the nature of God, the afterlife, guardian angels, ghosts and spirits.

• The young people who were most at risk or in poverty saw religious people as middle class and claimed God wasn’t to be found in the neighbourhoods.

  • They saw churches as exclusionary and unwelcoming to people like them.

• World rejecting NRMs and NAMs are attracting members.

ATTENDANCE AT CHRISTIAN CHURCHES:

• Brierley, using data from English Churches Census:

  • 6.3% of children under the age of 15 were regularly involved in church activities in 2010, but this drops to 4% for those aged 15 to 19 and falls again to 3% after the age of 20.

  • This means that half the children in church drop out of organised religion by the time they’ve reached early adulthood.

• Levitt – study of religious practices in a Cornish town:

  • Attendance at church declines with each generation.

• Fahmy:

  • Just 4% of young people aged 16 to 24 in deprived areas regularly attended church.

  • The only exceptions to this rule seem to be the Pentecostal and Baptist denominations.

  • These continue to attract younger members, usually from ethnic minority backgrounds.

• In 2012, about 30% of churchgoers were aged over 65 even though members of this age group are more likely to be ill or disabled.

• Brierley:

  • The congregations of denominations such as Methodsm are rapidly ageing, although this doesn’t apply to the Pentecostal churches.

  • These religions are failing to attract the young.

  • Denominations like Methodism may consequently die out altogether in the next 30 to 40 years.

THE ELDERLY AND RELIGION:

• Coleman – longitudinal study of retired people over 20 years:

  • Even the elderly are losing faith in God.

  • A number of participants attributed their declining faith to disappointment with churches and the clergy.

  • Cited insensitive handling of bereavement, the ‘self-importance’ of some clergy members and a lack of interest in the elderly.

ETHNICITY AND AGE:

• Asian:

  • Religion has a profound effect on shaping their identity.

  • Modood:

    • Asked the statement ‘Religion is very important to my life’ and found Pakistani and Bangladeshi respondents were much more positive towards religion.

    • 82% of the sample aged 50 and 67% of the sample aged 16-34 valued the importance of Islam in their lives.

    • About one third of young Indians saw religion as important.

  • The older generation saw religion as more important. But the age gap was the smallest.

• Black:

  • Religion has less of an effect on shaping their identity.

  • More likely than young white people to be practising Christians, especially born-again Christians.

  • Especially likely to be involved in sects amd cults like the Seventh Day Adventists or Rastafarianism.

  • 18% saw religion as important.

  • The older generation saw religion as important.

• White:

  • Only 5% saw religion as important.

  • The older generation saw religion as more important.

EXPLANATION FOR GREATER RELIGIOSITY AMONG OLDER GENERATION:

• Cultural Amnesia:

  • Hervieu-Leger suggests that modern societies have experienced a collective loss of religious memory.

  • For centuries children were taught religion in the extended family, at school and at Sunday school in the local Parish Church.

  • Religion was handed down.

  • In postmodernism, parents often let children decide their own religious beliefs.

  • There’s also a decline in Sunday schools and religion is no longer as important in education.

  • Young people have less religious knowledge and are less likely to inherit a fixed religious identity.

  • Older people are more attracted because religion was popular when they were growing up.

  • Greater emphasis was placed on religion during their education and socialisation.

  • Church attendance was the norm, their attendance as adults merely reflects old habits.

• Disengagement:

  • People become detached from the integrating mechanisms of society, like work, as they get older.

  • Retirement and the death of friends and family often results in social isolation and loneliness.

  • Participation in religion may compensate for this, religious organisations offer a community and social and emotional support.

• The generational effect:

  • Each new generation is less religious as society becomes more secular.

  • Gill: apart from Asian children, most no longer receive religious socialisation, so are less likely to attend church when they’re older.

• The ageing effect:

  • People turn to religion as they become older.

  • As people approach death they ‘naturally’ become more concerned about spiritual matters like the afterlife and the need to repent past misdeeds.

  • They’re more likely to go to church and pray.

CULTURAL AMNESIA:

• Voas:

  • Argues that in each generation people are half as religious as their parents.

  • A child with two religious parents only has a 50% chance of following the same beliefs, and if the child has only one religious parent, the chance of the child being religious is reduced to 25%.

  • These relate not only to church attendance but to faith and belief as well.

• Voas has been criticised on the basis that people may come to religion as a result of influences other than their parents.

EXPLANATIONS FOR YOUNG PEOPLES’ INTEREST:

• Individualisation:

  • Collins-Mayo:

    • Young people used to be compelled to follow religious rules, but increased individualisation now emphasises the self over social rules and constraints.

    • This change was aided by the decline of religious socialisation in the family and education.

    • Most schools now engage in a generalised secular or moral education, from which young people are encouraged to choose aspects that suit their lifestyle.

    • Religion is now a private personal choice.

    • Religious beliefs and practices rarely come up for discussion in young people’s conversations.

    • They’re likely to reject religious teaching or thinking that conflicts with their individual morality.

    • Generally not hostile towards it, but don’t engage in it.

    • This is because personal relationships, rather than religion, are their main source of meaning.

    • Religion only comes into play when those relationships are threatened by illness or death.

• Increased spiritual choice:

  • Lynch:

    • Young people today are exposed to a wider range of ideas and practices than previous generations.

    • Includes philosophical ideas like atheism, humanism, existentialism, logic and rationalism – along with alternative spiritual beliefs like Wicca.

    • Young people may derive spiritual satisfaction from following a football team, listening to music or taking drugs.

• The decline of metanarratives:

  • Postmodernists see young people as most likely to be disenchanted with the world because of their exposure to further and higher education.

  • May feel that religion has lost the power of explaining the world to them as they have easy access to alternative accounts, especially scientific ones.

• Declining attraction of religion:

  • Brierly:

    • 87% of 10-14 year olds thought church was boring, repetitive, uncool, old-fashioned and full of old people who were out of touch with the styles and attitudes of young people.

    • Also young people today have increased demands on their time.

      • They simply have more interesting and pleasurable ways to spend their waking hours.

YOUNG PEOPLE AND ISLAM:

• In a PEW poll in 2006, 72% of Muslims of all ages in the UK said they believed that Muslims had a very strong sense of Islamic identity.

• 28% said they had a very strong sense of Islamic identity.

• 44% said they had a fairly strong sense of identity.

• 77% said this sense of identity was increasing.

• Some sociologists argue that ‘Muslim’ has become a new ethnicity.

• Samad:

  • “as South Asian linguistic skills are lost, identification with Pakistan and Bangladesh – countries that young people may only briefly visit – becomes less significant and being Muslim as an identity becomes more important.

YOUNG MUSLIM WOMEN:

• Have adapted well to maintaining their Islamic identity and fitting into the British culture.

• Samad:

  • Many young South Asian Muslim women draw a distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘culture’. This contrasts with their parents who in their view mistakenly confuse the two.

• Able to use their Muslim identity to resist their parents’ opinions about how they should dress and behave.

• Woodhead:

  • Muslim women have developed a ‘careful and often lavish attention to style, mixed with a very deliberate nod to faith’, which she terms ‘Muslim chic’.

• Simultaneously committing to Muslim identity and British national identity.

• Has resulted in parents offering greater freedoms to go out, progress to higher education and be fully involved in choosing their marriage partner.