Where Americans Find Meaning in Life
Family is the most common source of meaning in America, but economic, religious and political divides shape where people find meaning in other aspects of life.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted Sept. 18 to 24, 2018, among a national sample of 1,754 adults (including 336 Catholics), 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (439 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 1,315 were interviewed […]
Relatively few adults in Western Europe participate in religious activities. For example, across the 15 countries surveyed, a median of 22% say they attend religious services at least once a month. By comparison, regular religious service attendance is much more common in some other parts of the world with large Christian populations, including Africa, Latin […]
Question 1: Measuring religious identity How does Pew Research Center measure the religious identity of survey respondents and the religious composition of the U.S.? Answer: Generally, we rely on respondents’ self-identification. A key question we ask in many surveys is: “What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such […]
One of the biggest challenges facing those who seek to understand U.S. elections is establishing an accurate portrait of the American electorate and the choices made by different kinds of voters. Obtaining accurate data on how people voted is difficult for a number of reasons. Surveys conducted before an election can overstate – or understate […]
American Catholics continue to have a favorable opinion of Francis. Yet there are signs of growing disenchantment with the Argentine pontiff, particularly among Catholic Republicans.
A new analysis looks at beliefs and behaviors that cut across many religious denominations – important traits that unite people of different faiths, or that divide those of the same religious affiliation.