True or False: Less Religion Means Greater Diversity?

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7572/true_or_false__less_religion_means_greater_diversity/

February 7, 2014

True or False: Less Religion Means Greater Diversity? When a graphic makes the info harder to parse.

By ELIZABETH DRESCHER
Elizabeth Drescher is the author of the forthcoming book Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s None (Oxford University Press). She teaches religion at Santa Clara University, and lives online at www.elizabethdrescher.com and @edrescherphd on Twitter.


Will America simply age out of all of its social struggles, no extra effort required?

Making hay with the mildly controversial Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) yesterday released an infographic showing ethnic distribution of religious unaffiliation of affiliation across generational categories, adding a bit of kindling to the ongoing conversation among religious sorts about how to hold on to Millennials in light of the white, Boomer-and-beyond stronghold on religious institutions.

Data like these are always engaging, especially with a delightful, refreshing beverage. But this new data set tells little that most religionists didn’t already know—while it might actually skew our understanding.

The PRRI infographic illustrates, that is, that the percentage of younger people who claim no religious affiliation is on the rise. At the same time, it shows that percentages of those in any age category who do claim a religious affiliation are more likely to be white, this pale religious reality growing dramatically with age.



The coupling of affiliation and ethnic data as presented here, however, significantly confuses the categories and, in doing so, muddies the picture of religious affiliation and unaffiliation in America.

more at link

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I don't think the PRI graphic muddies things as much as the author does

" In fact, people aged 18 to 30 made up just north of 21% of the U.S. population in 2013, according the U.S. Census Bureau, while folks between the ages of 30 and 49 comprised nearly 35% of the population"

Well, yes, 30-18=12; 50-30=20. The author thinks it's 'might not be that useful' to see unaffiliation as a generational thing; but it's practically twice as common in the youngest group - 18-29 - as in what is basically their parents - 50-64. But by comparing a larger age group with a smaller one, she tries to make it go away.

Then, the author turns round and tries to minimise the relative size of a group between ages:

"There are higher percentages of white GenXers, Boomers, and Silents who claim religious affiliation. Thus, the PRRI report amplifies the lack of ethnic and racial diversity in American Christianity in particular, highlighting, for instance, the fact that, by percentage, “seniors are about three times more likely than Millennials to identify as white Catholic” [emphasis added].

In real numbers, though, the difference is between some 3.6 million Millennials and 7.4 million Silents who identify as “white Catholic.” That doubling across generational populations is surely not nothing..."

Yes, but in this case, 'seniors' is the 65+ age group (which is over a generation above the Millennial), but there are fewer (43,287,000) than of the millennials (51,168,000). Also, 6% of 51 million is 3.1 million, not 3.6 million. So this time, when the writer wants to make how much a group has shrunk look smaller, she uses the absolute numbers from the smaller older group and a larger, younger one.

With age groups that differ in size, the correct way to compare them is, as PRRI does, by looking at the proportional make-up inside each of them. The author is juggling numbers.

"For we must also bear in mind that some 71% of the unaffiliated are also white, according to the Pew “Nones on the Rise” study. That means nearly three quarters of the Millennials in the PRRI study who identified as unaffiliated—22 of the total 31%—are white."

No, not necessarily - that 71% is for the unaffiliated of all age groups. The author assumes it applies to the 18-29 age group at the same rate. It would be interesting to know how age and race are distributed among the unaffiliated, but those figures don't appear in either Pew or PRRI reports.

For someone writing a book "Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s None", Drescher seems remarkably loose with her use of numbers.