Women’s Representation in the Church in Wales

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Governing Body of the Church in Wales met at the University of Wales, Trinity St David on 21 and 22 September 2011.

One of the items on its agenda was a report from Dr Gill Todd of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon on the representation of women in the Church, charting the Church’s progress in implementing the recommendations of a working group she had chaired on the same subject in 2008, which had been endorsed by the Governing Body in that year. The 2011 report and appendices can be found at:

http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/structure/govbody/sep11/

The following table has been compiled from Appendices 2, 3 and 5 in the report to show how the percentage of women at various levels of governance of the Church in Wales has changed between 2008 and 2011:

   2008   2011 
 Governing Body

26.6

41.5
 Representative Body

4.0

8.0
 Bishops’ staff

16.1

22.2
 Diocesan Boards of Finance

18.9

13.7
 Churchwardens

56.0

51.8
 Parochial church council secretaries

74.5

79.3
 Parochial church council treasurers

47.7

48.2
 Senior clergy (area deans to bishops)  

3.8

13.1
 Stipendiary clergy

 

20.8
 Non-stipendiary clergy

 

52.3
     

It will be seen that, while the representation of women in the Church in Wales has generally improved over this triennium, there have been some reversals (in respect of members of Diocesan Boards of Finance and churchwardens), and that the proportion of women fluctuates widely dependent upon the office. There are no recent data on the gender profile of Church in Wales congregations, but in the 1995 Welsh Churches Survey they were 68% female, and the figure is unlikely to be less now.

The Governing Body also debated the annual report on membership and finance, for 2010. This has not yet been posted on the Church’s website, but a summary of the General Body’s discussion of the document – on page 7 of the Church Times for 30 September 2011 – indicates that the news on this front is not good.

Richard Jones, Diocesan Stewardship Adviser for Llandaff, is quoted by the newspaper as saying that membership and average attendance statistics are now at ‘critical levels’, undermining the ability to maintain diocesan and parish organizations, church buildings, ministry, and staffing structures. The report showed an ‘alarming rate of decline’, he added, with a 5% drop in Easter communicants and average attendances, and significant decreases in attendances by young people, baptisms and confirmations.    

As for finance, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, Chairman of the Representative Body, noted that the net income of the Representative Body had dropped from £19 million in 2008 to £15.2 million in 2009 to £14.6 million in 2010, underlining the serious impact of the credit crunch. He forecast that the Church faced the prospect of a ‘significant deficit of between £1 million and £2 million per annum, for a number of years to come’. 

Although the fall in income may have been exacerbated by the economic recession, the downward spiral in Church in Wales membership indicators is more longstanding, as demonstrated in our coverage of the 2004-09 data this time last year. See:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=639

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Psychics

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The age of reason has not yet fully dawned, apparently. Almost one-quarter of British adults claim to have consulted a psychic or medium, even though many fewer (one in seven) believe that these intermediaries have a real ability to predict the future and/or talk to the dead.

This is according to a YouGov survey published on 5 October. Fieldwork was conducted online among a representative sample of 2,500 Britons aged 18 and over on 25-26 September 2011. The data tables are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-psychics-051011.pdf

Asked whether they had ever consulted a psychic or medium, 75% said no and 23% yes. Of the latter, 11% had done so only for fun and 12% with serious intent. Women (32%) were far more likely to have visited a psychic than men (12%). The 18-24s also recorded a low figure (13%).

The overall proportion who had consulted a psychic or medium was consistent with previous YouGov polls in October 2004 (24%) and October 2007 (25%) and with the Hereafter Report of January 2011 (22%), but it was larger than in a Populus survey of April 2005 (17%).

Of those who had consulted a psychic or medium, 57% felt the consultation had been truthful and 33% untruthful, with 9% uncertain. The perception of truthfulness increased with age, from 40% among the 18-24s to 62% with the over-60s. It was also higher among manual workers (63%) than non-manuals (52%) and comparatively low for Londoners and Scots (51%).

However, just 14% of the whole sample actually believed that psychics have a genuine ability to predict the future and/or talk to the dead, comprising 7% of men and 20% of women. 58% did not consider that psychics have such skills, of whom nearly three in five (34%) contended that they were deliberately deceiving the public.

Such deception has been in the news lately, with doubts raised about the genuineness of one of the country’s best-known psychics.

Finally, respondents were asked by YouGov to rate how spiritual they judged themselves. Three-fifths said that they were not spiritual, rising to 71% with men, 65% for 18-24s, and 64% for non-manual workers.

35% described themselves as spiritual, including 45% of women and 40% of the over-60s. This compares with 32% in last January’s Hereafter Report, which also gave religiosity as an alternative to spirituality, a choice not available in the current YouGov poll.

 

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Catholicity of Catholic Schools

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Clive D. Field

When are Catholic schools no longer Catholic? This is the question posed by Sam Adams, news reporter for the Catholic weekly The Tablet, following publication on 23 September 2011 of the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales (CESEW)’s Digest of 2010 Census Data for Schools and Colleges. The digest is available online at:

http://www.cesew.org.uk/temp/CESEWspCensusspDigestsp2010spelectronicspcopy.pdf

In statements from Dr Oona Stannard, its Chief Executive and Director, the CESEW has been at pains to emphasize the popularity and diversity of the 2,289 Catholic schools and colleges in England and Wales (10% of the national total), as revealed in the 2010 digest.

For example, the number of students educated in Catholic schools rose from 781,400 in 2009 to 784,800 in 2010, while these schools attracted around 4% more students from ethnic minority backgrounds than did maintained schools as a whole.

However, it seems to be statistics about the Catholicity of Catholic schools which are grabbing the media spotlight and triggering debate within the Catholic community.

Overall, 71% of pupils in maintained Catholic schools in England and Wales in 2010 were Catholic, defined as having been ‘baptised or received into the Catholic Church’.

The figure for Catholic sixth form colleges was only 50% and for Catholic independent schools 41%. The diocesan low was in Plymouth, where 46% of primary and 43% of secondary pupils were Catholics.

Nationally, 19% of maintained Catholic schools had more than one-half non-Catholic pupils in 2010 compared with 14% in 2009. A sign of the times was that, in respect of school uniform policy, 61% of schools made allowances for pupils of other faiths (against just 24% in 2009).

The proportion of teachers in maintained Catholic schools and colleges identifying themselves as Catholics was 56% (against 58% in 2007), falling to 45% in secondary schools, with 43% in Catholic independent schools.

In diocesan terms, the highest number of Catholic teachers was in Liverpool (67%) and the lowest in East Anglia (36%). 18% of teachers in maintained Catholic schools held the Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies. 52% of education support staff in maintained Catholic schools were Catholic (37% in secondary schools alone).

Adams covered the digest in his report on page 35 of The Tablet for 1 October under the headline ‘Non-Catholic pupils continue to swell rolls of church schools’. He posed his question about when Catholic schools cease to be Catholic in The Tablet’s blog for 30 September, which can be found at:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogsub.php?id=187&ti=17

The conclusion Adams reached was: ‘I would argue that it is possible to retain the Catholic ethos of a school even if a significant proportion of pupils are not Catholic, but that there is a limit, or demographic tipping point, when it is simply farcical for that school to continue as “Catholic”’.

‘Oona Stannard of the CES believes the data shows the popularity of Catholic education. Fair enough, but to maintain a truly Catholic culture there needs to be a core community of Catholic pupils and teachers. And if that’s not possible, the school’s leadership and the diocese should face facts and let the school go.’

The longest comment on the blog to date was posted by Tony Spencer of the Pastoral Research Centre on 4 October. He makes the point that the proportion of non-Catholic pupils and non-Catholic teachers at Catholic schools is not a new phenomenon.

According to him, their numbers have been rising for over half a century but the trend has been disguised by ‘spurious’ calculations within the CESEW’s unpublished reports for 1992-2006, which have inflated the computed number of Catholic students at Catholic schools.

Another observation from Spencer, from his reconstruction of the 2009 census of Catholic schools and correlation with the Church’s baptismal data, is that there are now almost enough places for 5-16s in Catholic schools to accommodate all the Catholic pupils in that age group, but that about a third of Catholic parents prefer to send their children to non-Catholic schools, despite the fact that Catholic schools appear to be highly regarded.

Spencer has written at length elsewhere on these and other aspects of Catholic educational policy as reflected in the empirical evidence. See our earlier post at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=1365

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Professor David Voas Moves to Essex

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Clive D. Field

It seems to have been all change recently in the world of UK religious statistics. Following the news (covered on BRIN) of career moves for Lynda Barley of the Church of England and Benita Hewitt of Christian Research, we can now report that Professor David Voas is upping sticks, also.

The University of Essex announced on 28 September that David, BRIN’s co-director since its inauguration in 2008, will be joining Essex’s prestigious Institute for Social and Economic Research in November 2011, and thus leaving his post as Simon Professor of Population Studies at the Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester. Essex’s press release can be found at:

http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/2011/09/28/david-voas-joins-iser

One of the country’s leading quantitative sociologists, David has been at Manchester since 2003 and previously worked at the Universities of Sheffield and Liverpool and in the private sector. A demographer by training, David’s research over the past decade has mostly revolved around the intergenerational transmission of beliefs and values, specifically religion. He is British national programme director of the European Values Study. Full details of his career and publications are at:

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/Voas/personaldetails

After his departure for Essex, David will become a visiting member of academic staff at the Institute for Social Change in Manchester, as is his fellow co-Director of BRIN, Dr Clive Field. Dr Siobhan McAndrew, BRIN’s research officer, continues to be based at Manchester, and the BRIN website will still be hosted there and further developed as opportunity permits. We wish David every success and happiness in his exciting new research post at Essex.

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Church of England Resumes Normal Service

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Great news for statisticians! The Church of England has decided to resume publication of Church Statistics in something like its traditional form. This was discontinued in 2006 following the appearance of the edition for 2004/05, and in favour of what hitherto has not been a wholly satisfactory web-based substitute (although enhancements are in hand).

Church Statistics, 2009/10, prepared by the Research and Statistics Department of the Archbishops’ Council, was published on 29 September 2011 as a 67-page booklet (ISBN 978-0-9564659-2-4). This can either be ordered in print from Church House Bookshop (price £6.99) or downloaded for free at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1333106/2009churchstatistics.pdf

It mostly derives from two sources of data: parochial attendance and membership statistics for 2009; and parochial finance statistics for 2009 and numbers of licensed ministers for 2010. The former have already been partly released in provisional form on 3 February and covered by BRIN the next day, so recapitulation of the headlines is unnecessary here. See our previous post at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=868

The financial and ministerial statistics are now published for the first time. There was a net decline of 72 in the number of licensed clergy (including part-time and self-supporting ministry), and of 129 in full-time stipendiary clergy alone. There were 8,135 of the latter in 2010 (21% of them women), compared with 15,391 in 1961 and 23,670 in 1901, prompting a headline in today’s The Times of ‘Vicar shortage may leave Church “little more than a sect”’. Moreover, the mean age of all stipendiary diocesan clergy was 52, with 22% aged 60 and over. 97% of them in 2010 were white.

The financial data reveal that the 2008 ‘credit crunch’ had an adverse impact on parochial income in 2009, which dropped by 4%, from £925 million to £889 million. However, the decrease was mainly in restricted income and one-off donations, tax-efficient planned giving actually rising modestly and topping an average of £10 per subscriber a week for the first time (the figure was £0.32 when initially recorded in 1964). Nor were Anglican parishes as hard hit as many other charities. Total parochial expenditure in 2009 was £886 million, of which £699 million was recurring and £187 million for capital.

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UK Defence Statistics, 2011

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Clive D. Field

UK Defence Statistics, 2011, published online by the Ministry of Defence on 28 September 2011, shows that, compared with the Integrated Household Survey (IHS) for 2010-11, our armed forces remain nominally more religious than the rest of the population (doubtless, in part, a legacy of the historical institutionalization of religion in the forces). However, those who profess no religion are steadily increasing.

Table 2.13 reveals that 13.4% of armed forces personnel claimed to have no religion, when the snapshot was taken (1 April 2011), an increase of 0.8% on 2010 and of 3.9% on the 2007 figure. The proportion was higher in the Royal Navy (18.8%) and the Royal Air Force (16.2%) than in the Army (10.5%). Of the remainder, 85.0% were Christians (against 89.8% four years previously) and 1.6% from other religions (much smaller than the national average and perhaps a reflection of continuing underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in the services).

Table 2.33 analyses the religion of civilian personnel. The complication here is that religious affiliation was either undeclared or uncollected in the majority (52.6%) of cases. Of individuals providing a response, 71.7% were Christians, 5.0% non-Christians, and 23.2% categorized as ‘secular’ (this last figure is identical to the IHS statistic for all Britons). Trend data are given for 2008 (when Christians numbered 73.3% and seculars 21.4%), 2009 and 2010, and statistics are disaggregated by pay grades. There were fewest Christians (66.5% in 2011) at the most senior grades. 

Both tables can be viewed at:

http://www.dasa.mod.uk/modintranet/UKDS/UKDS2011/pdf/chapter2.pdf

BRIN’s coverage of the religion tables in UK Defence Statistics, 2010 remains available at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=622

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Integrated Household Survey, 2010-11

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Integrated Household Survey (IHS) is the biggest pool of UK social data after the decennial population census, so there will be special interest in the statistical bulletin containing headline results for the period April 2010 to March 2011, published by the Office for National Statistics on 28 September at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_227150.pdf

The question on religious affiliation (‘What is your religion, even if you are not currently practising?’) was answered by 413,832 individuals (including under-16s) in Great Britain. Different question-wording was used in Northern Ireland, and results from that province are not reported in the bulletin.

In Great Britain as a whole 23.2% professed no religion, with 68.5% being Christian, 4.4% Muslim, 1.3% Hindu, 0.7% Sikh, 0.4% Jewish, 0.4% Buddhist, and 1.1% subscribing to other religions.

The proportion with no religion was lowest in England (22.4%) and highest in Wales (30.6%), with 27.2% in Scotland. Scotland had the most Christians (69.6%) and Wales – historically synonymous with Nonconformity – the fewest (66.1%).

All the non-Christian faiths were relatively stronger in England than in the other two home nations, and this was particularly true of Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs. For example, Muslims represented 4.9% of people in England, 1.2% in Wales, and 1.3% in Scotland.

There was an above-average number of persons with no religion among all the under-50 age cohorts. This was notably so for the 16-24s (31.6%) and the 25-34s (32.5%). For the over-65s the figure was only 8.4%. It was also among the over-65s that the proportion of Christians peaked (87.6%).

By contrast, Muslims had a very youthful profile, accounting for 7.9% of all under-16s, 5.5% of 16-24s, and 6.4% of 25-34s. Even assuming standard rates of fertility, this concentration presages an above-the-norm growth in the Muslim population of Britain over the next decade.

The principal changes since the 2009-10 IHS have been an increase of 2.7% in the number professing no religion and a decrease of 2.9% for Christians. Muslims were up 0.2%. BRIN covered the 2009-10 data at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=603

As discussed in the present author’s forthcoming essay on ‘Repurposing Religious Surveys’, there are several ways of enquiring into religious affiliation, each producing different results.

This explains the big discrepancy in the size of the no religion category between the ‘What is your religion?’ formulation employed in the census and IHS and the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys’ approach of ‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’, the one assuming and the other ‘discouraging’ a faith identity.

In the latest BSA to be published, for 2009, and for the first time in the history of BSA back to 1983, a slim majority of respondents said they had no religion, as already noted by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=891

Thus, the accuracy and meaning of the 2010-11 IHS statistics of religious affiliation are likely to be the subject of some debate. They seem bound to be deployed or controverted to support opposing views on the place of religion in modern society.

Already, in its article on the IHS, the Daily Mail has claimed it demonstrates ‘the nation remains overwhelmingly Christian … days after it emerged that BBC programme-makers have been put under pressure to stop describing dates as BC or AD.’ See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043045/Modern-Britain-70-claim-Christians-1-5-gay.html

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Perceived Threats to Christianity

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Forced to choose, churchgoing Christians in the UK are far more likely to think that secularism rather than Islam is the greater threat to Christianity, according to poll data made available to BRIN by ComRes but not yet posted on the company’s website.

Briefly noted in the Baptist Times and Church of England Newspaper of 12 August, the results derive from the Cpanel survey for Premier Christian Media undertaken by online interview between 6 and 18 July 2011 with 529 Christians aged 18 and over.

46% of respondents identified secularism as the greater threat to Christianity, 13% Islam, and 30% both equally, meaning that, in all, 76% had concerns about secularism and 43% about Islam.

A mere 10% of the sample thought that neither secularism nor Islam posed any threat to Christianity. This rose to 18% among the 18-34s and Baptists, dwindling to 4% for Roman Catholics and 3% for Pentecostals. However, unweighted cell sizes were small.

The number concerned about secularism alone declined with age, falling from 68% for churchgoers aged 18-34 to 45% among the over-65s. Denominationally, Roman Catholics (68%) showed most anxiety about secularism, partly following the Pope’s lead.

Women churchgoers (82%) were more preoccupied with secularism on its own or in combination with Islam than men (71%). In terms of churchmanship, catholics (87%) and low churchpeople (91%) recorded the highest figures on this aggregated measure.

The 18-34s were least worried about Islam alone (3%) or about Islam in parallel with secularism (14%). 55% of over-65s viewed Islam alone or Islam in conjunction with secularism as a threat, as did 73% of Pentecostals, 54% of Independents, and 50% of women.

Other data from the same Cpanel study which have entered the public domain, concerning campaigning issues for Christians, have already mostly been covered by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=1375

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Sectarianism in Scotland

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The recent resurgence of sectarianism in Scottish football is overwhelmingly condemned by Scots, according to a poll commissioned by the Scottish Government, and published on 4 September to coincide with the commencement of Scottish parliamentary scrutiny of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill.

Fieldwork for the study was undertaken by TNS-BMRB between 27 July and 3 August 2011, by means of face-to-face interviews in the home with 1,028 Scots aged 16 and over. Data tables can be found at: 

http://www.tns-bmrb.co.uk/assets-uploaded/documents/sectarianism-poll-aug-11_1315215048.pdf

Roughly nine in ten Scots agreed with the four propositions in the survey: 89% that sectarianism is offensive; 89% that it is unacceptable in Scottish football; 91% that stronger action needs to be taken to tackle sectarianism and offensive behaviour associated with football in Scotland; and 85% that sectarianism is a criminal offence. Disagreement on each measure ranged from 3% to 5%, with the balance neutral.

Variations by demographic sub-groups were relatively limited, but there was a definite tendency for endorsement of the propositions to be lowest among those aged 16-24 years. In particular, only 75% of this cohort regarded sectarianism as a criminal offence and 78% as unacceptable in Scottish football. Likewise, agreement with the statements was below par among the DE social group (semi- and unskilled manual workers).

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Turkey and the European Union

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Clive D. Field

About one-quarter of Britons hold an unfavourable opinion of Turkey and consider that its membership of the European Union (EU) would be a bad thing, perceiving it as a predominantly Muslim country which would be out of place in the EU.

This is one of the findings from Transatlantic Trends, 2011, a partnership between the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Compagnia di San Paolo, with support from four other sponsors, which reported on 14 September. Topline results can be found at:

http://www.gmfus.org/publications_/TT/TTS2011Toplines.pdf

Fieldwork was coordinated by TNS Opinion and took place in the United States and 13 European countries, including the UK. ICM interviewed 1,001 adults aged 18 and over by telephone here between 25 May and 19 June 2011.

In the UK 27% of citizens agreed that, as a mainly Muslim nation, Turkey did not belong in the EU. This was 2% more than in 2005 and the same as in the United States. But the figure was under the European average and notably lower than in Belgium (58%), Slovakia (48%) and Poland (46%), with the remaining European countries ranging from 31% to 38%. 65% of UK respondents disagreed with the proposition, the same as in 2005, with 8% undecided.

Overall British opposition to Turkey’s membership of the EU, in terms of it being regarded as a bad thing, has risen from 9% in 2004 but, at 27%, it remains less than the European average and is greatly exceeded by 45% in France and 40% in Germany. 25% in the UK pronounce it as a good thing, 41% are neutral, and 7% undecided.

Alternative trend data on attitudes to Turkey’s membership of the EU are available from the Eurobarometer studies. See our previous post at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=707

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