65% of 12-19 year olds do not describe themselves as belonging to a religion

"65% of 12-19 year olds do not describe themselves as belonging to a religion according to 2004 Department for Education & Skills (DfES) Report 564"  


source: British Humanist Association


I quote from above report "Young People in Britain: The Attitudes and Experiences of 12 to 19 Year Olds", by Alison Park, Miranda Phillips and Mark Johnson from the National Centre for Social Research.



2.2.3 Ethnicity, religion and national identity

A third of young people described themselves as belonging to a religion, with the majority, just over a quarter, belonging to a Christian religion. Two thirds did not regard themselves as belonging to any religion, an increase of ten percentage points in as many years (from 55 per cent in 1994 to 65 per cent in 2003).

As the next table shows, young people were markedly more likely than adults not to see themselves as belonging to a religion.

It should be noted that the overall figure for adults disguises considerable age related differences; among 18 to 24 year olds, 60 per cent said they did not belong to a religion (as did 56 per cent of 25 to 34 year olds).

These findings largely reflect generational differences in religious attachment, with younger generations being both less likely than their predecessors to define themselves as religious and maintaining this distinctiveness as they themselves get older.

Consequently, the proportion of people in Britain who see themselves as belonging to a religious group will continue to fall over time (Park, 2000). Indeed, between 1994 and 2003, the proportion of adults with no religious affiliation has grown from 39 to 43 per cent. 

4.1 Social participation

We also asked young people whether they regarded themselves as belonging to any particular religion, and if so, how often they attended services or meetings, apart from special occasions such as weddings, funerals or baptisms. As described in Section 2.2.3, around two-thirds of young people did not associate themselves with any religion – a very similar proportion to that found in the previous Young People’s Social Attitudes survey in 1998. Just ten per cent attended once a week or more, with a further six per cent going at least once a month. It is apparent that young people are less likely to attend religious activities than any of the other leisure activities mentioned earlier such as cinema, sport, and music or drama.

When we compare young people’s religious activity with the religion of the adult respondent in the household, there is a clear association. This is not surprising given that many young people will be brought up with their parents’ religious beliefs or activities, particularly while still living at home. Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of young people in households where the adult respondent said they did not belong to a particular religion also said they had no religion, compared with just over a third (37 per cent) of young people living in a household with an adult who had a religious affiliation.