CV NEWS FEED // Recent data show that the number of American “nones” is no longer rising, suggesting that the long-time upward trend in religious non-affiliation has hit a ceiling.
Statistician Ryan Burge examined results from the 2023 Cooperative Election Study and tracked the rise of nones over the years, discovering that 36% of American adults considered themselves non-religious in 2023.
That was the highest number ever recorded, which was first reached in 2021. In 2022, the number had dipped down slightly to 35%.
In previous years, the number of nones had risen significantly, going from 21% to 30% between 2008 and 2013, then jumping to 32% in 2018. By 2019, the number had reached 35%.
“it has become crystal clear to me now: the share of non-religious Americans has stopped rising in any meaningful way, Burge wrote, later continuing:
From a pure statistical standpoint, I don’t know if we can say with any certainty whether there’s a larger share of nones in the United States today than there was in 2019. It’s probably right about 35% (according to this one estimate of the nones). But it definitely hasn’t continued to explode in the last few years.
Burge then broke down this year’s respondents into generational groups, finding that older generations were more likely to be religiously non-affiliated. Both the percentage of Silent Generation and the percentage of Baby Boomers nones rose three points from 2020 to 2023 (Silent Generation rising to 21%, Boomers to 28%), but the percentage remained constant for Gen X (34%). For Millennials, the percentage went down, from 43% to 42% over the same time frame, while Gen Z showed the most drastic change.
“Among Gen Z, something completely odd happened,” Burge wrote. “The share who were nones in 2020 was 45%. It rose to 48% in 2022. Then, it dropped to 42% in 2023.”
He added:
I am fully willing to admit that this 42% figure doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s the biggest year to year drop in the nones that I can find in the CES data. But it does track with the larger move of younger generations being less likely to be nones.
He further broke each generation down into religious groups, finding that Catholicism hovers around 20% in every generation, while Protestantism went from 48% in the Silent Generation to just 19% in Gen Z. Millennials and Gen Z had almost identical religious compositions.
Burge also included data from the General Social Survey, which shows the dramatic rise of American nones between the 1980s and 2010s. However, a small downward trend begins toward the end of the graph.
“Now, let’s be fair – it’s only a single percentage point,” Burge wrote. “On its own, this one data point does not an argument make. But, when you couple that with all the stuff I just showed you from the Cooperative Election Study, it feels like the polling data is converging on the same reality.
According to data from the Pew Research Center, nones went down from 31% to 28% nationally between 2022 and 2023.
“After seeing a slow and steady rise from 28% in 2020 to 31% in 2022 – the Pew data from 2023 indicates that the share of nones in the general population dropped to 28% or back to the levels that they recorded in 2020,” Burge wrote. “This is three surveys that are all pointing to the same, very simple conclusion: The rise of the nones may be largely over now. At least it won’t be increasing in the same way that it did in the prior thirty years.”
He added that as the more religious, younger generations begin to replace the older ones, the numbers of nones will likely continue to fall.
