A new survey from the Pew Research Center indicates that religious life in the United States has reached a period of relative steadiness, halting the long slide seen in previous decades.
Pew’s report concludes that core indicators such as religious identification, frequency of prayer, the perceived importance of faith, and participation in worship services have largely remained unchanged since roughly 2020.
The balance between Americans who call themselves Christian, those belonging to other faiths, and those claiming no religion at all has also shown little movement over the past few years.
According to multiple Pew studies conducted since 2020, about seven in ten U.S. adults continue to say they are affiliated with some religion, with no noticeable trend upward or downward.
This plateau appears significant, Pew researchers note, because it follows many years of decline, driven heavily by younger, less religious generations replacing older cohorts.
Although some observers have recently suggested that young adults — particularly young men — may be rediscovering religion, Pew’s analysis of its own figures and other major datasets finds no widespread shift toward greater religious practice or commitment in this age group.
Overall, younger Americans continue to exhibit markedly lower levels of religious engagement than older adults, and Pew adds that today’s young adults are less religious than their counterparts were a decade ago.
For example, in the 2025 National Public Opinion Reference Survey, 59% of the oldest respondents said they pray daily, compared with just 30% of those born between 1995 and 2002.
Attendance patterns show a similar gap: 43% of the oldest adults reported going to religious services at least monthly, while only 26% of young adults reported the same.
The research likewise found no surge in young men joining Christian traditions, and conversion data still shows Christianity losing more adherents than it gains through switching.
Pew acknowledges that a few specific trends are worth noticing, even if they fall short of signaling a larger spiritual awakening.
One such trend is the narrowing of the gender divide among the youngest adults. In generations past, young women tended to be more religious, but recent findings show near parity: in the 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study, 57% of women aged 18–24 described themselves as religious, compared with 58% of men.
According to Pew, this shift stems mainly from decreasing religiousness among young women rather than an uptick among young men.
Another pattern appears in the responses of the very youngest adults, who sometimes show slightly higher religious involvement than those just a few years older. About 30% of individuals born from 2003 to 2006 said they attend religious services monthly or more, compared with 24% of those born between 1995 and 2002.
However, Pew cautions that this fluctuation has appeared in previous surveys and often dissipates as young people age and move out of their family homes.
