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Parental Divorce and Adult Religiosity: Evidence from the General Social Survey

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Review of Religious Research

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between parental divorce and religiosity, including religious affiliation change and church attendance. Data from the 1991, 1998, and 2008 waves of the General Social Survey provide information both on current religiosity and religiosity in respondents’ families of origin. The results suggest that living with a single divorced parent—but not a remarried or widowed parent—increases church attendance and the odds of a change in religious affiliation. Catholics and Protestants from divorced families are disproportionately likely to become apostates as adults, while people growing up in unaffiliated divorced families more often become affiliated as adults. However, parental divorce has fewer effects on the likelihood of moving from one denomination to another.

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Notes

  1. Models would not converge when race was included, even as a dichotomous variable. Also, effects of independent variables aside from parental family structure are not shown due to space limitations. As these are multinomial logistic regressions with an eight-category dependent variable, each model produces seven separate sets of coefficient for all independent variables.

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Acknowledgments

We thank David Lapp and W. Bradford Wilcox for bibliographic information, Alta Williams for research assistance, and Matthew McKeever for helpful suggestions on a previous draft.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Hsien-Hsien Lau

  2. Department of Family and Consumer Studies, University of Utah, 225 South 1400 East, AEB 228, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-0080, USA

    Nicholas H. Wolfinger

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Correspondence to Nicholas H. Wolfinger.

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Lau, HH., Wolfinger, N.H. Parental Divorce and Adult Religiosity: Evidence from the General Social Survey. Rev Relig Res 53, 85–103 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-011-0004-7

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