Young people’s attitudes to religion
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There is strong evidence for a generational effect in declining religious identification among the UK’s population. Each successive generation has less attachment to religion but the differences between generations are decreasing. Whereas 72% of those born before 1945 would regard themselves as belonging to a religion, the figure is 51% for Baby Boomers, 40% for Generation X and 38% for Generation Y. 27% of the Pre-War generation regard religion as very important in their lives, twice as many as for all younger generations. It appears that this trend has been driven by a reduction in affiliation with the Church of England, which has halved, whilst affiliation with other Christian denominations has stayed constant and the numbers of people affiliating with non-Christian religions has increased.
This slow down in the trend towards secularisation may be explained by younger generations being more ethnically diverse than older generations as the immigrant minority ethnic population in t...
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