Why Americans Leave, Stay in Their Childhood Religion – Pew Research Center

Religious Landscape Study, Report. December 15, 2025

Why Do Some Americans Leave Their Religion While Others Stay?

Study shows most Americans who leave their childhood religion do so by age 30

By Becka A. Alper, Patricia Tevington, Asta Kallo and Jeff Diamant

About this research

Many U.S. adults (35%) have moved on from the religion of their youth. Yet most Americans have not, including a majority – 56% – who still identify with their childhood religion. Another 9% weren’t raised in a religion and still don’t have one today.

This Pew Research Center report looks at the choices behind these decisions: why some people continue to identify with their childhood religion, why others have decided to leave it, and why others don’t identify with any religion at all.

The findings about how many people switch religions come from our U.S. Religious Landscape Study (RLS) conducted in 2023-24. But to dig deeper into the reasons people give for switching or staying, we conducted a follow-up survey in May 2025.

The follow-up survey shows that most U.S. adults who still identify with their childhood religion credit the following as extremely or very important reasons:

• They believe the religion’s teachings (64% of adults who identify with their childhood religion say this).
• Their religion fulfills their spiritual needs (61%).
• Their religion gives their life meaning (56%).

Fewer say that other reasons – such as a sense of community (44%), familiarity (39%), traditions (39%), or the religion’s teachings on social and political issues (32%) – are extremely or very important reasons why they continue to identify with their childhood religion as adults.¹

Among Protestants who have held onto their religious identities, 70% cite belief in their religion’s teachings as a key reason why they are Protestant today. Most lifelong Protestants also say they are Protestants today because their faith meets their spiritual needs and gives their life meaning.²

Among Catholics who have held onto their religious identities, 54% say a key reason they are Catholic today is because it fulfills their spiritual needs, 53% cite belief in the religion’s teachings, and 47% say it’s because it gives their life meaning.

Lifelong Jews most commonly mention a somewhat different set of reasons for why they are Jewish. Among U.S. adults who were raised Jewish and still identify as Jewish by religion, 60% say liking the traditions is an extremely or very important reason they are Jewish, and 57% cite liking the sense of community. About half of Jews say they are Jewish because it’s their family religion and/or because it’s something they’re familiar with.

(There were not enough respondents from other groups – such as people raised Muslim who still identify as Muslim, or people raised Buddhist who are still Buddhist – for us to be able to analyze their responses separately.)

Americans’ choices to stay in or leave their childhood religion also are tied to their religious upbringing, their age and their political leanings.

Reasons people say they left their childhood religion

We asked a different group of Americans, those saying they had left their childhood religion, to evaluate the importance of various factors that may have led them to leave. This group includes Americans who were raised in one religion and have switched to another religion (10% of U.S. adults) as well as those who no longer identify with any religion (20%).

Americans who’ve left their childhood religion most commonly cite the following as extremely or very important reasons behind their decision:

• They stopped believing in the religion’s teachings (cited by 46% of people who were raised in a religion and have left that religion).
• It wasn’t important in their life (38%).
• They just gradually drifted away (38%).

About a third of people in this group say their religion’s teachings about social and political issues (34%) or scandals involving clergy or religious leaders (32%) were important reasons for leaving the religion in which they were raised.³

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Why Americans Leave, Stay in Their Childhood Religion | Pew Research Center