Most Americans are raised in religiously homogenous homes, the results of a recent Pew Research survey suggests.
The Pew survey found that as many as 79 percent of respondents were raised in a home in which only one religion was practiced or no religion was practiced. Of those, 65 percent of them were raised by two parents who shared the same religion, and 14 percent were raised with a single parent.
Only about 22 percent of the US adults were raised in religiously mixed households.
Of the minor proportion of individuals who were raised by parents adhering to different affiliations, some 10 percent were raised by parents who were from different religions, such as a Protestant mother and a Catholic father, while about 12 percent were raised by one religious parent and another who was a religious "none."
Millennials (27 percent) were most likely to be raised in religiously mixed family, as compared to Gen Xers (20 percent), Baby Boomers (19 percent) and Elders (13 percent).
Elders (48 percent) were also twice as likely as Millennials (24 percent) to be raised by two Protestant parents.
The study noted that those people who were raised by unaffiliated parents or single parent were the ones who responded most positively to religious "none" identity (62 percent).
Also, about 40 percent of the religious "nones" came from religiously mixed households.
As many as 26 percent of the adults who grew up in households where one parent was a Protestant and another Catholic were religiously unaffiliated. Some 20 percent of the religious "nones" had parents who were both Catholic, while 14 percent grew up in Protestant homes.
About 80 percent of the exclusive Protestant families pass on their faith to the next generation. Some 62 percent of the adults raised by both Catholic parents retained their family faith.
Only 56 percent of the adults belonging to families where one of the parents was a Protestant identified as a Protestant. This proportion was a little less than 50 percent among Catholic adults.
About 46 percent of the adults attributed their religious affiliation to the mother as being "more" responsible for their religious life than their father.
Only 7 percent said that their religious faith was primarily shaped by their father.
Some 41 percent gave credit to both their parents for religious upbringing.
The survey was conducted on over 35,000 respondents across the country in 2014, and is a part of the broader US Religious Landscape Study. The research includes findings from another related survey conducted by Pew in 2015 again on 5,000 of the earlier participants.
