Young Americans are becoming less religious: Survey

Younger Americans are becoming less likely to say they are religious, with about a third of Generation Z and Millennials now identifying with no religion, according to a new survey.

The Gallup polling analysis, released Thursday, shows that 70 percent of adults in the U.S. said over the last year that they have a religious preference — but that share is falling across all age demographics. The most pronounced decline is among people aged 43 and younger, the polling found.

About 34 percent of respondents born between 1997 and 2006, or Gen Z, and 30 percent of Millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — said they are not religious. Meanwhile, just 8.5 percent of respondents in the "Silent Generation," those born before 1946; 13.2 percent of baby boomers (1946-1964) and 18.6 percent of Generation X (1965-1980) said they were not religious, per the survey.

The number of Americans overall who are not religious, according to the pollster, has nearly tripled when compared to 2000, from 8 percent to 22 percent, though the steep decline has started to level off in recent years.

"The decline in religious affiliation in the U.S. over the past two decades is thus largely a result of generational change, as younger adults — who are much more likely to have no religious identity — have replaced older generations, which had relatively few unaffiliated members," Gallup's analysts wrote in the findings.

"However, population replacement does not entirely explain the decline in U.S. religiosity," they added. "Within each birth cohort, more adults over time have reported they have no religious identity."

Gallup also noted that the sharp increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation over the past two decades came amid concurrent declines in Protestant and Catholic identification.

About 45 percent of respondents to the 2024 polls identified as Protestant or nondenominational Christian, 21 percent as Catholic and 10 percent as another religion. The results for each are within one percentage point of their 2018-2020 levels, according to the analysis.

The latest polling also found that far fewer Americans say religion is “very important” to their lives. About 45 percent of respondents in the 2024 polling said they considered religion important — down from 70 percent in 1965, when the pollster first asked the question.

The Gallup poll surveyed 12,136 adults, aged 18 and older, across all 50 states and the District of Columbia by telephone during 2024. The margin of error is 1 percentage point.