Religion in the Millennium Cohort Study

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education, University of London has recently released some findings from the third survey of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) as they relate to the religious affiliation and worship practices of mothers of five-year old children.

The MCS is tracking 18,818 babies born in the United Kingdom in 2000 and 2001. It is commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council with supplementary funding from a consortium of Government departments. Fieldwork for the third survey was undertaken by NatCen in 2006.

The religious data are highlighted in a press release issued by the Centre on 16 February 2010 and available at:

http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/news.asp?section=000100010003&item=553

They are also explored in the chapter by Alice Sullivan on ethnicity, community and social capital in the new book Children of the 21st Century: The First Five Years, edited by Kirstine Hansen, Heather Joshi and Shirley Dex (Policy Press, 2010, ISBN 9781847424754, £24.99).

Headlines from the press release include the following:

  • White mothers are by far the most likely to say they have no religion (43%), while black African and black Caribbean mothers are most likely to identify as Christians 
  • Pakistani and Bangladeshi mothers are almost exclusively Muslim, whereas Indian mothers are more diverse, being mainly Hindu (41%), Sikh (35%) or Muslim (13%)
  • Half of the mothers who profess to have a faith attend religious services rarely or never
  • Sikh (32%) and Roman Catholic (31%) women are most likely to attend a weekly religious service, against 13% of Protestant mothers (61% of whom rarely or never go to public worship)
  • 65% of Muslim mothers rarely or never attend services, in line with the expectation of their faith that they will not frequent the mosque
  • Muslim fathers are substantially more likely than fathers from other religious groups to attend services weekly (57% against 20% of Catholic fathers)

The dataset for the third MCS survey is available from the Economic and Social Data Service as SN 5795, together with all other MCS datasets.

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Jewish Emigration from the United Kingdom to Israel

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Jewish Agency for Israel has announced that the number of United Kingdom Jews emigrating to Israel, or making Aliyah, in 2009 was, at 853, the highest recorded figure in 26 years and 37 per cent above the 2008 level. About one-quarter of these olim arrived in Israel on three special Aliyah flights, in August, October and December 2009. The head of the Agency’s delegation in the United Kingdom has attributed the increase to the relatively good economic situation in Israel and to a new tax package reform.

The 2009 figure brings to 37,293 the number of United Kingdom Jews who have emigrated to Israel since the latter’s establishment as a state in 1948. Only in 1969-72, 1978-79 and 1982-83 did the annual total exceed 1,000. The United Kingdom accounts for just 1.2 per cent of all Jewish emigrants to Israel since 1948, the former Soviet Union countries (at 38.4 per cent) being the largest single component. The number of British Jews at the 2001 census was 267,373 or 0.5 per cent of the population.

Full details of Aliyah statistics since 1948 will be found at:

http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/About/Press+Room/Aliyah+Statistics

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Religious Attendance in Cross-National Perspective

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Why are some countries more religious than others? A partial answer to this question is provided by two Dutch sociologists, Stijn Ruiter and Frank van Tubergen, in a very recent (notwithstanding the November 2009 cover date) article in the American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 115, No. 3, pp. 863-95, and entitled ‘Religious Attendance in Cross-National Perspective: A Multilevel Analysis of 60 Countries’.

The authors use data from 60 of the 82 countries included in three of the waves of the European/World Values Surveys, conducted between 1990 and 2001. They cover 136,600 respondents in all, including Britons.

Multilevel logistic regression techniques are applied to these data to test eleven hypotheses derived from four theories of religious change (including secularization) and which potentially bear on differential levels of religious attendance. The discussion is sophisticated but also somewhat technical and heavy going.

Ruiter and van Tubergen conclude that three-quarters of the cross-national variation in religious attendance is explained ‘by personal and societal insecurities and by parental and national religious socialization and level of urbanization’.

Attendance rates were found to be particularly high in countries with more socio-economic inequalities and lower social welfare expenditure. Less surprisingly, people living in urban areas worship less frequently than rural residents, while those brought up in religious societies attend services more than those reared in secular nations.

More generally, the World Values Survey website – http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ – is an excellent resource, enabling files to be downloaded from, and online analysis to be conducted on, all the surveys which have been undertaken since 1981. It includes data from the three principal British surveys to have been published to date, with fieldwork in 1981, 1990 and 1999.

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Religion and Politics – A New Opinion Poll

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Since its launch in November 2006 the public theology think tank, Theos, has performed valuable service in a number of ways, not least (in the cause of religious statistics) by commissioning a series of opinion polls to gauge public attitudes on a range of religious and moral issues.

With a general election in the offing, Theos has sponsored ComRes to survey the views of 1,085 British adults of voting age on the subject of religion and politics. Fieldwork was conducted by telephone on 17 and 18 February 2010. These voters and potential voters sub-divided into 674 professed Christians, 71 Muslims, 47 of other faiths and 291 of no religion.

Recall of voting at the 2005 general election showed that Muslims and those of no religion were then somewhat more inclined to support Labour than the Conservatives. Among those likely to vote this year this still remains the case for Muslims, 57 per cent of whom opt for Labour and 18 per cent for the Conservatives.

For all other groups there is a net advantage for the Conservatives over Labour, +10 per cent among Christians, +34 per cent for non-Christians other than Muslims and +8 per cent for those of no religion.

When asked which of the political parties had been most or least friendly towards particular religions during recent years, one-half of respondents were unable to express a view. Of those recording an opinion, the Conservative and Labour parties are seen as equally well-disposed to the Christian faith.

However, Labour is felt to be most empathetic to Islam (by 36 per cent of the sample, against 10 per cent who judged Conservatives as most pro-Muslim). Labour was also regarded as being more predisposed towards faith in general.

Majorities of the population disagree that religious freedoms have been restricted in Britain during the past decade (59 per cent against 32 per cent agreeing), and that the law should prevent people from expressing their religious views in the workplace (63 per cent against 31 per cent).

Most (64 per cent, with 30 per cent disagreeing) consider that the Pope and other religious leaders have a responsibility to speak out on political issues they are concerned about, a topic prompted by Benedict XVI’s recent intervention over the equality bill before the Westminster Parliament.

There is a commentary on the poll by Nick Spencer, Director of Studies at Theos, which aims to trigger an online debate on the question ‘Is Labour the Natural Home for British Muslims?’ This can be accessed at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/Is_Labour_the_natural_home_for_British_Muslims.aspx?ArticleID=3850&PageID=11&RefPageID=5

There is also a ComRes press release on the survey, with a link to the full data tables, at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/page190146516.aspx

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Religion and Community Cohesion

Posted on February 20, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Department for Communities and Local Government published 2008-09 Citizenship Survey: Community Cohesion Topic Report by Cheryl Lloyd on 18 February 2010. It runs to 196 pages and is available for free download at:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/statistics/pdf/1473353.pdf

This is the first of the projected four reports from the 2008-09 Citizenship Survey, which is the fifth in a series initiated by Government in 2001.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted by NatCen between April 2008 and March 2009 with a representative core sample of 9,335 adults aged 16 and over in England and Wales, and with an ethnic minority booster of 5,582 adults.

The eight substantive chapters in the report, and the associated tables, cover: perceptions of community cohesion, views on the immediate neighbourhood, views on the local area, fear of crime, meaningful interaction with people from different backgrounds, social networks, attitudes to immigration, and sense of belonging to Britain.

In each case the results are analysed by religious affiliation. Some of the differences between religious groups arising from the current report are:

  • People of no religion are less likely to feel a strong sense of belonging to their neighbourhood than those professing a religion, 71 per cent against 79 per cent, with Sikhs recording the highest figure (88 per cent) and Buddhists the lowest (64 per cent)
  • People of no religion are less worried about crime than those professing a religion, 34 per cent against 43 per cent, with Hindus most worried (60 per cent) and Buddhists the least (34 per cent)
  • People of no religion are more likely to have meaningful interactions with citizens from different ethnic or religious groups than those professing a religion, 85 per cent against 79 per cent, with Hindus having the most contact (96 per cent) and Christians the least (78 per cent)
  • People of no religion are less likely to call for a major cut in the number of immigrants coming to Britain than those professing a religion, 45 per cent against 53 per cent, with Christians most exercised on the matter (56 per cent) and Muslims the least (23 per cent)
  • People of no religion are less likely to feel a strong sense of belonging to Britain than those professing a religion, 81 per cent against 85 per cent, with Sikhs feeling the greatest sense of identity (91 per cent) and Buddhists the least (71 per cent)

The dataset from the 2008-09 Citizenship Survey will be available for secondary analysis in due course from the Economic and Social Data Service. Datasets from the four previous surveys, in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007-08, are already held there (Study Numbers 4754, 5087, 5367 and 5739 respectively).

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Baptist Union Statistics, 2002-08

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Headline findings from the Baptist Union of Great Britain’s latest statistical returns are featured on the front page of the current issue of the Baptist Times (dated 19 February 2010). The results, which cover the years 2002-08 are mixed. Hence the newspaper’s headline: ‘Encouraging and positive, disturbing and alarming’.

On the upside, church attendance on the first Sunday in December rose by 3 per cent to 154,000 during these years, roughly in line with the growth in population. The actual number of churchgoers is probably somewhat higher than this figure as some Baptists will worship less than weekly and some will attend church on a day other than a Sunday.

Another piece of good news for the Baptist Union is the increase in teenagers attending Baptist churches (up by 9 per cent) or otherwise in contact with it (up by 21 per cent). However, retention appears to remain a problem since young adults (aged 20-25) in contact declined by 16 per cent during this six-year period.

Likewise on the downside, church membership fell by 7 per cent, baptisms by 23 per cent and children under 14 in contact with Baptist churches by 8 per cent. The number of members in 2008 was 139,000, considerably less than the total of Sunday church attenders, and a far cry from the halcyon days of the Free Churches when adherents would have exceeded members several times over.

Commenting on the figures, Rev Jonathan Edwards, General Secretary of the Baptist Union, described the falling number of baptisms as ‘deeply alarming’. He added: ‘It is widely acknowledged that people today are increasingly reluctant to make long-term commitments.’

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British Social Attitudes Survey, 2008

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Clive D. Field

British Social Attitudes: The 26th Report by Alison Park and others was published by Sage on 26 January 2010 (£50, ISBN 9781849203876). It comprises a series of essays based upon the findings of the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey, conducted among a representative sample of adult Britons aged 18 and over. The survey has been undertaken by what is now NatCen annually since 1983 (except in 1988 and 1992), on behalf of a range of public-sector and third-sector clients and funders. A combination of face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires is used.

As in 1991 and 1998 (when they formed a module of the International Social Survey Program), the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey included a large number of religion-related questions, especially funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the John Templeton Foundation and NORFACE. These underpinned two of the chapters in the published report, both written by members of the British Religion in Numbers project team at the Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester.

The first chapter is by David Voas and Rodney Ling on ‘Religion in Britain and the United States’ (pp. 65-86), for which a press release will be found at:  

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/pzMedia/uploads/EntityFieldFile/dae358b5-1486-4b9e-8119-2c917c05780d.doc

NatCen’s official summary of this chapter reads: ‘There has been a sharp decline in religious faith in Britain, while in America people are much less likely to be atheist or agnostic. Despite this difference, people in Britain and America hold similar views about the place of religion in society. Most people are pragmatic: religion has personal and social benefits, but faith should not be taken too far. From politics to private life, many domains are seen as off limits to clerical involvement. Our research also revealed that just over half of people in Britain (52%) fear that the UK is deeply divided along religious lines and are particularly concerned about Islam compared with other faiths.’

The other chapter is by Siobhan McAndrew on ‘Religious Faith and Contemporary Attitudes’ (pp. 87-113), which is summarized as follows: ‘People who are religious hold more traditional attitudes towards family and personal relationships. Half of religious people believe that homosexual sex is always or almost always wrong compared with one in five of unreligious people. One in five religious people agree that it is the man’s job to earn money and the woman’s job to stay at home and look after the home and family compared with one in ten of the unreligious.’

These two chapters by no means exhaust the religion-related potential of the 2008 British Social Attitudes Survey, as will become clear when the dataset is released for secondary analysis by the Economic and Social Data Service. Meanwhile, a glimpse of the relevant subjects and topline results can be found in the questionnaire, which is available at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/pzMedia/uploads/Downloadable/d1f738cd-0dab-4858-a771-505eda40de3d.pdf

See, in particular: face-to-face questionnaire, Q656-Q844, Q1111-1119; self-completion questionnaire version A, Q8-Q34; and self-completion questionnaire version C, Q17-Q34. The total number of respondents for the 2008 survey was 4,486, although many questions were only posed to sub-samples.

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Church in Wales Schools

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Church Times for 12 February included a feature by Edwin Counsell on the Church in Wales’ 168 primary and four secondary schools. This highlighted the work of the Church in Wales Education Review, which has recently been completed after a three-year information-gathering exercise among the church, education and political communities of Wales.

The report on the Education Review can be found at:

http://www.roath.org.uk/Documents/FaithInEducation/CiWEducationReviewEng.pdf

It is written by Dr David Lankshear, statistics officer to the Education Review and, in its later phases, also its secretary. He is programme leader at the St Mary’s Centre, the national centre supporting religious education in Wales, which was established at St Deiniol’s Library in 2008. He has published widely in the field of church-related education, often in partnership with Professor Leslie Francis.

Appendix B (pp. 64-73) of the Education Review summarizes the statistical information about Church in Wales schools. This is partly collated from diocesan and local authority websites and from school performance data. However, special surveys were also undertaken in connection with the Review among Church in Wales incumbents, parochial church council (PCC) secretaries and parents of children attending Church in Wales schools.

A separate account of the surveys among clergy (n= 275) and PCC secretaries (n= 538) appears as David Lankshear and Mandy Robbins, ‘Church in Wales Schools: A Perspective from within the Church’, REview Wales, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2009, pp. 4-9. This is available at:

http://www.st-marys-centre.co.uk/documents/cms/aug09review.pdf

Further papers by David Lankshear describing the statistical results of the Education Review are promised. He can be contacted at dlankshear@st-deiniols.org

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Global Religious Trends to 2020

Posted on February 12, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Anybody using British religious statistics in a comparative context may find a new discussion paper by Peter Brierley (head of Brierley Consultancy) of interest.

It is entitled Global Religious Trends, 2010 to 2020 and has been prepared for this year’s Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, being held in Cape Town. The 57 page paper is available (price £12, inclusive of postage) from Dr Peter Brierley, 1 Thorpe Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent, TN10 4PW.

The paper examines ten key secular and religious trends which will impact upon global Christianity during the coming decade and seeks to quantify them. The secular trends include those of ageing, immigration, family and technology. Key elements of the religious scene include the static number of Christians overall (relative to population), combined with a growing proportion of Evangelical Christians and Muslims.

There is a particularly interesting account of the ‘tribes’ of evangelicalism, largely informed by a new analysis of data from Christian Research’s English Church censuses (the latest from 2005).

Otherwise, there are few specifically British statistics. Global data are used wherever practicable, disaggregated by continent. Major sources include the World Religion Database and the World Values Surveys (the latter particularly for churchgoing).

Naturally, the usual caveats apply to the quality of some of the forecast data, not least those which are projected as far forward as 2050.

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Marriages in England and Wales

Posted on February 12, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Office for National Statistics released the provisional marriage data for England and Wales for 2008 in a Statistical Bulletin published on 11 February 2010. The report, with accompanying Excel spreadsheets, will be found at:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=14275

The principal religious information in the statistics relates to the mode of solemnization of marriage. Civil ceremonies have consistently exceeded religious ceremonies since 1992, and 2008 was no exception, with 67 per cent of all marriages being by civil ceremony (either in a registry office or on approved premises).

The proportion of religious ceremonies was accordingly one-third, a 3 per cent decrease on the 2007 figure. The number of religious marriages has fallen by more than one-quarter since 1998, twice the rate of decline in the total of marriages during the same period.

Of the 76,700 religious ceremonies in 2008, 73 per cent were conducted by the Church of England, 11 per cent by the Roman Catholic Church, 8 per cent by the principal Free Churches (Methodist, Calvinistic Methodist, United Reformed Church, Congregational and Baptist), 4 per cent by other Christian bodies and 3 per cent by other faiths.

81 per cent of religious ceremonies involved a first marriage for both partners, compared with 63 per cent of all marriages and 54 per cent of civil marriages. The remaining 19 per cent entailed a remarriage for one or both partners, against 46 per cent in the case of civil marriages. This especially reflects a trend for divorcees to opt for civil ceremonies, doubtless sometimes unwillingly (because of continuing religious opposition to divorce).

Breakdowns of marriages by method of solemnization were first provided for England and Wales in 1838, when 99 per cent of all marriage ceremonies were religious ones, overwhelmingly in the Church of England. Data were published annually until the First World War, but more intermittently thereafter.

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