Graduate Center Survey of Religion in America Complements U.S. Census

Fifty-two percent of adults in America are Protestant, 24.5% are Catholic, and 14.1% adhere to no religion, according to the latest American Religious Identification Survey, 2001 ("ARIS 2001") just released by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Those giving their religion as Jewish are 1.3% and those as Muslim or Islamic are 0.5%.

With a sample of over 50,000 randomly selected respondents aged 18 or over, ARIS 2001 is the most comprehensive portrait of religious identification in the U.S. today. First conducted in 1990 and repeated this year, the survey fills a gap left by the Census, which does not ask about religion. Nearly 95% of those interviewed were willing to indicate their religious identification and views on important questions about their beliefs. The findings, weighted to be representative of the 208 million U.S. adult population, include national and state-by-state examinations of religious identification in relation to racial/ethnic identification, education, age, marital status, voter registration status and political party preference. The complete report is available on The Graduate Center's web site at <www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/studies_index.htm>

ARIS 2001 is closely modeled on The Graduate Center's 1990 National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI), permitting many comparisons:

Catholic adults increased from 46.0 million to nearly 50.8 million, but their proportion in the population fell by nearly two percentage points.

Although Protestant and other non-Catholic denominations remain the majority, with more than 105.4 million adult adherents, their proportion slid sharply from 60% to 52%.

2.8 million adults give their religion as Jewish, down from about 3.1 million in 1990. Another 2.5 million, who say they have no religion or identify with another religion, are of Jewish parentage, were raised Jewish or consider themselves Jewish.

The number of adults who identify with a non-Christian religion rose sharply, from about 5.8 million to 7.7 million. However, their proportion remains small, 3.7% up from 3.3% in 1990.

Muslim/Islamic adults total 1.1 million -- nearly double the number in 1990. Those identifying their race as black are 23% of the group; the others overwhelmingly identify as white or Asian.

One of the most striking 1990-2001 comparisons is the more than doubling of the adult population identifying with no religion, from 14.3 million (8%) in 1990 to the current 29.4 million (14.1%). The 1990 figure may be downwardly biased due to a slight change in the wording of the key survey question in 2001. In seeking a more accurate measure of identification, the clause "if any" was added this year to the question, "What religion do you identify with?" The prior wording may have subtly prompted respondents to name some religion.

ARIS 2001 goes further than its predecessor in investigating such new territory as membership in a place of worship, change of religious identification over one's lifetime, and religion of the spouse or partner of respondents. Findings reveal, among other things, a huge gap between religious identification and affiliation with a place of worship. Although 81% of America's adults identify with a religion, only 54% reside in a household where anyone belongs to a church, temple, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship. About 20% of those who say they have no religion (including many atheists and agnostics) nevertheless report that they or someone else in their household is a member of a religious congregation. About 40% of adults who describe themselves as "religious" report no membership in any religious congregation.

  • Other noteworthy findings:
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    Catholics are the majority in Rhode Island (51%) and the largest single category in Massachusetts (44%); Mormons are the majority in Utah (51%) and Baptists are the majority in Mississippi (55%).

    New York is home to more of America's Jews (25%) and Muslims (24%) than any other state. New York is also home to the largest percent of the nations Taoists (26%), and Greek Orthodox (17%).

    California has the highest percent of the nations Jehovah's Witnesses (17%) as well as of Hindus (30%). California also has the nations largest cluster of those with no religion (15%).

    Pennsylvania has the largest number of the nation's Mennonites (18%) while Wisconsin has the largest clustering of Lutherans (10%).

    The median age of all adults is 43 years. For Catholics it is 42, for Jews it is 51, and for Muslims it is 28. The median age of those who identify with no religion is 36 years.

    Married adults and others living in a couple relationship are most likely to have a spouse or a partner of a different faith if they are Episcopalian (50%) or Buddhist (47%).

    Jehovah's Witnesses have the highest proportion of female adherents (68%), followed by Church of God (64%); the highest proportion of male adherents is among Muslims (62%) and Buddhists (61%).

    Adherents of Assemblies of God are the most apt to describe themselves as Republicans (59%); Jews are the most Democrat-leaning (56%), and Buddhists are the most independent with respect to political party preference (48%).

    Black adults are most likely to give their religion as Baptist (47%) or as no religion (11%); Native Americans are most likely to give their religion as Baptists (20%) or as no religion (19%).

    Hispanics are most likely to give their religion as Catholic (57%), followed by no religion (13%).

    The study was directed by Dr. Egon Mayer, Professor of Sociology at The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, and Dr. Barry Kosmin, who also directed the 1990 religion study, along with research fellow and demographer Dr. Ariela Keysar. Dr. Kosmin was co-author, along with now State Senator Seymour Lachman, of One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary America (Harmony Books, 1993), the widely referenced book on the 1990 NSRI. He is currently a visiting professor in the Study of Religions Department at University College in Chichester, England.

    As in 1990, the data were gathered on behalf of The Graduate Center by the ICR Survey Research Group in Media, PA. The survey was funded by the Posen Foundation.

    The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of new York. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. Established in 1961, The Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of about 3,500 students in 31 doctoral programs and six master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences and sciences. It also houses 30 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program.

    According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the Northeast.