Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture

April 2-5, 2009

Religious Decision-Making on Life Cycle Events

American Religious Identification Survey ARIS 2008

Ariela Keysar

Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and CultureTrinity College

Hartford, Connecticut

DRAFT – NOT FOR CITATION

Data

• Data are drawn from the American Religious Identification Survey ARIS 2008

• ARIS 2008 is based on a national representative sample using random-digit-dialed (RDD) telephone interviews with 54,461 respondents

• The analysis for this presentation is based on sub-sample of over 6,000

Life Cycle Religious Rituals

“Did you have a religious initiation ceremony, such as a baptism, christening, circumcision, confirmation, bar

mitzvah or naming ceremony?”

• Religious initiation reflect decision made by the respondents’ parents, namely– Religious practices in an earlier generation– On average practices around 1960

Life Cycle Religious Rituals

“Were you married in a religious ceremony?”(ever married respondents only)

• Religious marriage ceremony relates to a– more recent & personal decision– yet negotiated with the spouse

Life Cycle Religious Rituals

“When you die, do you expect to have a religious funeral or service?”

• Expecting a religious funeral reveals of current social preferences

• Religious funerals and burials are important if one has personal concerns about salvation and the immortality of the soul

Life Cycle Religious Rituals

Religious Rituals

Initiation91%

Initiation74%

Initiation55%

Marriage75%

Marriage76%

Marriage43%

Funerals80%

Funerals77%

Funerals20%

Catholics Other Christians Nones

Life Cycle Religious Rituals

• Catholics observe rituals throughout their life cycle

• Other Christians have fewer initiations but are otherwise similar to Catholics

• Nones’ rejection of rituals rises over the life cycle

Life Cycle Religious Rituals

• The growing non-religious minority in the United States reduces the traditional societal role of congregations and places of worship in family celebrations of life-cycle events

Life Cycle Religious Rituals No-Religion Group

by religion at age 12(n=1,106)

Ritual Catholic Other- Christian

Other –

Religion

None Total

Initiation 88% 64% 40% 26% 55%

Marriage 44% 56% 37% 31% 43%

Funeral 19% 22% 16% 17% 20%

Life Cycle Religious Rituals No-Religious Group

• Catholics show the biggest decline in ritual observance when they leave the faith

• Decisions on religious marriages often require negotiating w/a partner who professes a religion

• Differences in religious upbringing have the smallest effect on plans about funerals

Logistic RegressionReligious Funeral/Service

• Dependent Variable: yes/no religious funeral or service

• Random sample of U.S. adult population

• Independent Variables: gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, region, current religion, and religious behavior (attendance in services)

 When you die, do you expect to have a religious funeral or service? 1= Yes; 0= No/DK/Ref B Sig. Exp(B)

Race (Black)   0.230  

White -0.006 0.986 0.994

Hispanic 0.292 0.521 1.340

Other 0.741 0.123 2.097

College Graduate (less than college) 0.315 0.062 1.370

Male (Female) -0.366 0.025 0.694

Age (70 years or more)   0.704  

18-29 Years 0.056 0.857 1.057

30-49 Years -0.082 0.736 0.922

50-69 Years -0.211 0.373 0.810

Region (South)   0.000  

Northeast 0.236 0.348 1.266

Midwest 0.192 0.374 1.212

West -0.885 0.000 0.413

Attend Church (at least once a week)-1.422 0.000 0.241

Current Religion (Catholic)   0.000  

Other Christian -0.354 0.133 0.702

Other Religion -1.464 0.000 0.231

None -2.094 0.000 0.123

Constant 2.598 0.000 13.443

Nagelkerke R Square = 0.361N = 967

Logistic Regression

Logistic RegressionReligious Funeral/Service

• Males, those living in the West, professing other religion or no religion, and not attending religious services frequently are the least likely to expect to have religious funeral/service

• Interestingly, age and race/ethnicity are not statistically significant in predicting religious end of life rituals

Conclusions

• While initiation ceremonies reveal about the religiosity of past generations, expectations about religious funeral services reveal current attitudes

• A decline in religious funeral services, if it actually occurs, would have long lasting consequences for religious institutions