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Short-form data and analysis from Pew Research Center writers and social scientists. To view all our reports and publications, visit our main Publications page.

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Stockton, Alabama, USA - April 22, 2023: Montpelier Methodist Church is pictured in Baldwin County Bicentennial Park in Stockton, Alabama. The church was built in 1895.

How religion declines around the world

Religion in a country tends to decline in three transitional stages that unfold across generations, a new paper using Center data proposes.

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  • short reads

    Think Obama is A Muslim…Still

    Since his appearance on the national scene, a consistent one-in-ten Americans say Barack Obama is a Muslim; another 35% say they do not know Obama’s religion.

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    Reluctant Suffragettes

    Not until 60 years after passage of the 19th Amendment did women finally turn out in equal voting proportion to their male compatriots. What took them so long?

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    I Want To Go Where It’s Warm

    Americans prefer a hotter place to live over one with a colder climate by nearly a two-to-one margin.

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    God’s Gender Gap

    Women are more religious than men on a variety of measures.

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    Cell-Only Youth

    About a third of Americans ages 18 to 29 have only a wireless phone.

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    Republicans: Fewer, More Conservative

    Slightly more than a quarter of registered voters call themselves Republicans, a low in 16 years of polling by the Pew Research Center; most GOPers now think their party should move further to the right.

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    Tax Cheats

    About eight-in-ten American adults say they consider not reporting all income on one’s taxes to be morally wrong.

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    The Phantom Recovery

    The period from 1999 to 2007 is the longest in modern U.S. economic history in which inflation-adjusted median household income failed to surpass an earlier peak.