The Demographics of Disaffiliation

Abstract

This chapter shows what light the quantitative sociology of religion can shed on Catholic disaffiliation. Drawing on recent data from high-quality survey programmes—the British Social Attitudes (BSA) and the General Social Survey (GSS)—it presents a detailed portrait of Catholic disaffiliates in Britain and America across a broad range of demographic indicators (region, age, sex, birth year, birth cohort, race, immigrant status). Illuminating comparisons are also drawn to the retention, disaffiliation, and conversion rates in other major British and American denominations (Lutheran, Anglican/Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian). Among other important findings, these analyses provide a great deal of evidence for regarding the post-war Baby Boomers as a watershed generation with regard to the following decades’ steady declines in Catholic practice and identity.