Ariela Keysar Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture Trinity College

1. Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and CultureApril 2-5, 2009Religious Decision-Making on Life Cycle EventsAmerican Religious Identification Survey ARIS 2008 Ariela Keysar Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture Trinity College Hartford, Connecticut DRAFT – NOT FOR CITATION

2. Data • Data are drawn from the American Religious Identification Survey ARIS 2008 • ARIS 2008 is based on a national representative sample using random-digit-dialed (RDD) telephone interviews with 54,461 respondents • The analysis for this presentation is based on sub-sample of over 6,000

3. Life Cycle Religious Rituals “Did you have a religious initiation ceremony, such as a baptism, christening, circumcision, confirmation, bar mitzvah or naming ceremony?” • Religious initiation reflect decision made by the respondents’ parents, namely • Religious practices in an earlier generation • On average practices around 1960

4. Life Cycle Religious Rituals “Were you married in a religious ceremony?” (ever married respondents only) • Religious marriage ceremony relates to a • more recent & personal decision • yet negotiated with the spouse

5. Life Cycle Religious Rituals “When you die, do you expect to have a religious funeral or service?” • Expecting a religious funeral reveals of current social preferences • Religious funerals and burials are important if one has personal concerns about salvation and the immortality of the soul

6. Life Cycle Religious Rituals

7. Religious Rituals Initiation 91% Initiation 74% Initiation 55% Marriage 75% Marriage 76% Marriage 43% Funerals 80% Funerals 77% Funerals 20% Nones Catholics Other Christians

8. Life Cycle Religious Rituals • Catholics observe rituals throughout their life cycle • Other Christians have fewer initiations but are otherwise similar to Catholics • Nones’ rejection of rituals rises over the life cycle

9. Life Cycle Religious Rituals • The growing non-religious minority in the United States reduces the traditional societal role of congregations and places of worship in family celebrations of life-cycle events

10. Life Cycle Religious RitualsNo-Religion Groupby religion at age 12(n=1,106)

11. Life Cycle Religious RitualsNo-Religious Group • Catholics show the biggest decline in ritual observance when they leave the faith • Decisions on religious marriages often require negotiating w/a partner who professes a religion • Differences in religious upbringing have the smallest effect on plans about funerals

12. Logistic RegressionReligious Funeral/Service • Dependent Variable: yes/no religious funeral or service • Random sample of U.S. adult population • Independent Variables: gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, region, current religion, and religious behavior (attendance in services)

13. Logistic Regression

14. Logistic RegressionReligious Funeral/Service • Males, those living in the West, professing other religion or no religion, and not attending religious services frequently are the least likely to expect to have religious funeral/service • Interestingly, age and race/ethnicity are not statistically significant in predicting religious end of life rituals

15. Conclusions • While initiation ceremonies reveal about the religiosity of past generations, expectations about religious funeral services reveal current attitudes • A decline in religious funeral services, if it actually occurs, would have long lasting consequences for religious institutions