The latest Pew Forum on Religion and a Public Life research survey is a fascinating comparison of American religious groups. Let me pull some highlights out for discussion. These results are for the US only.

All Christian and Christian–related religions are predominantly made up of female members, mostly in the high 40’s percentage-wise for men, and the low 50’s for women. The exceptions to that are Jehovah’s Witnesses and what Pew lists as “members of historically Black protestant churches”. Both of those groups are 40% male and 60% female.

Religious groups where men were the predominant members were Jews (52% male, 48% female); Muslims (54% male, 46% female); Buddhists (53% male, 47% female); Hindu (61% male, 39% female) and “Other Faiths” (54% male, 46% female). The category of “unaffiliated” was 59% male, and 41% female.

Pew lists the comparative size of these groups as follows. Percentages represent percentages of Americans who belong to that group.

Evangelical Protestant – 26.3%
Catholic – 23.9%
Mainline Protestant – 18.1%
Unaffiliated (atheist, agnostic or nothing specific)– 16.1%
Historically Black Protestant churches – 6.9%
Jewish – 1.7%
Mormon – 1.7%
Other faiths (Unitarian, New Age, Native American) – 1.2%
Don’t know/Refused – 0.8%
Jehovah’s Witnesses – 0.7%
Buddhists – 0.7%
Orthodox – 0.6%
Muslim – 0.6%
Hindu – 0.4%
Other Christian – 0.3%
Other world religions -- <0.3%

The ages of members of religious groups varies by group, and can be looked up on their site, but the national averages are;

AGE PERCENTAGE
18-29 = 20%
30-49 = 39%
50-64 = 25%
65+ = 16%

I found the results somewhat surprising. I had not been aware of the size of Evangelical Protestant churches (translation: conservative). 29% was much more than I had thought.

I also found the clear splits between religions where there was a preponderance of one gender to be surprising.

And, there are more people under 50 who are worshipping than I had imagined – over 50% !

There are even more sections worth taking a look at _

They can all be found here

The list includes:
Racial and Ethnic Compositions
Regional Distribution
Income Distribution
Education Distribution
Marital Status
Distribution of Children at Home

Do any of these results surprise you or challenge any assumptions that you may have had?

Finally, an interesting article can be found that discusses the surprises Pew found in the results, including the following:

Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.

More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion -- or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, roughly 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

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Related blogs:
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Kelly Baker at Religion in American History comments on the survey and includes excerpts from a Washington Post Roundtable discussion with experts “On Faith”.

Sherry at intentional Disciples notes that 10% of Americans are ex-Catholics.

Diane at Democracy Cell Project speaks of the fluidity of religious affiliation and its importance in an election year.