The percentage of Americans who attend religious services is now “significantly lower” than before the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among young people and other groups identified as less likely to regularly attend.
The “Faith After the Pandemic” survey comes from the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life.
They found young people, those who are single and self-identified liberals ceased attending religious services at all at much higher rates than other Americans did.
“At least in terms of religious attendance, the pandemic appears to have pushed out those who had maintained the weakest commitments to regular attendance.”
As of Spring 2022, 33% of Americans said they never attend religious services, up from 25% before March 2020. Religious affiliation, though, is largely unchanged.
Among white Catholics, the percentage of those who do not attend religious services increased from 11% to 18%. Hispanic Catholics who never attend increased from 10% to 20%.
Almost half of Catholic respondents continued to say they attended religious services “infrequently,” the survey found. However, consistent Mass-goers tended to continue their churchgoing habits. The percentages of white Catholics and Hispanic Catholics who regularly attend religious services now compared with before the pandemic were relatively unchanged at 30% and 23%, respectively.
The groups most likely to attend religious services and to attend regularly are political conservatives, adults age 50 and older, women, married adults, and people with a college degree. Their frequency of attendance was “largely similar” to before the pandemic and spring of 2022. Overall, twice as many adults decreased religious attendance than increased attendance.
Young people, political liberals and moderates, and Americans without a college degree were the most likely groups not to attend religious services before the pandemic and as of spring 2022. About 30% of young adults attend religious services less often now, while only 12% are more religiously active compared with before the pandemic.
The survey found relatively little changes in church attendance among Mormons, white evangelical Christians, and Jews.
