(Unsplash/Creative Commons/Nathan Mullet)
Religion News Service
Join the Conversation
Send your thoughts to Letters to the Editor. Learn more
Amid anecdotal claims of a Gen Z religious revival, religion data analysts have been working over the last year to determine what, if anything, is changing in the religious lives of America's young people.
A new report from Pew Research Center, released Wednesday (Oct. 28), presents startling and conflicting findings. Most striking — although with several caveats — is that 41% of young adults surveyed who were born between 2004 and 2008 (ages 18 to 22) reported attending religious services at least monthly, a higher percentage than the U.S. public (33%) and any other age group except those born before 1950 (43%).
Chip Rotolo, senior researcher on Pew's religion and public life team, called the finding "pretty remarkably high." But he also noted the data is from a small cohort and contrasts drastically with outcomes from the next age group. Slightly older Gen Zs born between 2000 and 2003 (ages 23-26) had the lowest religion-related numbers of any age group in Pew's study. They are the least religious in terms of daily prayer (26%), viewing religion as very important (27%), identifying with a religion (50%) and attending religious services at least monthly (27%).
"It's not totally unusual to see that the very youngest adults have somewhat higher levels of religiousness than the young adults just above them," said Rotolo. "There could be a lot of reasons for that. It might be that they are still more likely to be living at home or carrying some of the values they were raised with."
Rotolo added that there are other mixed signals in the report. The same 18- to 22-year-olds said they were less religious than most older cohorts on other measures like daily prayer (34%) and identifying with a religion (59%). By comparison, Pew found that 46% of all U.S. adults surveyed pray daily, and about 69% identify with a religion.
He also cautioned that, in part due to a reduced sample size, the margin of error for the 18- to 22-year-olds is "about six percentage points." The surveys included a total of 443 respondents born between 2004 and 2008.
These findings come as key indicators of religiosity for all U.S. adults continue to plateau after years of religious decline, Pew found. Its latest report was based on data from two surveys: the center's 2026 National Public Opinion Reference Survey, with responses from 5,511 U.S. adults, and 2025 Cross-Sectional Engagement Survey, with responses from 5,393 U.S. adults.
"We see generally a picture of stability, and so even if there were some kind of larger cultural shift or movement happening, it leaves you scratching your head a little bit to think, like, how could this only be affecting 18- to 22-year-olds with a hard cut off at ages 23 and older?" Rotolo asked. "That's something we're going to have to continue exploring. But it's very striking to see such a big difference among such a small group."
The findings follow several surveys in the last year suggesting there may be a religious stirring happening among young Americans. In September 2025, evangelical polling firm Barna Group made waves when it published a finding that, among those already attending church, Gen Z attends more regularly than other generations of churchgoers — 1.9 times per month, just slightly more frequently than millennial churchgoers (1.8 times).
Advertisement
Then in April, Gallup polls showed an uptick in the percentage of 18- to 29-year-old men (42%) who said religion is very important to them, up from 28% from 2022 to 2023. The findings seemed to suggest a reversal of the religious gender gap: while young women have historically been more religious than young men, Gallup found that young men surpassed the roughly 30% of young women ages 18 to 29 who said religion was very important.
That same month, Public Religion Research Institute also released findings pointing to a gender gap reversal: 43% of adult women under 30 identified with no religious identity, outnumbering unaffiliated young men (35%).
Pew's new report added to and complicated the gender gap findings. About 47% of men born between 2004 and 2008 (now ages 18 to 22) reported attending religious services at least monthly, surpassing the 35% of women in that age cohort who said the same.
"This is the first time we have seen young men actually look a little bit more religious than young women on some measures," Rotolo said.
But he noted that religious attendance was at least somewhat elevated among both men and women and Republicans and Democrats in that age group. So, the rise in religious attendance can't be solely attributed to young men or Republicans, he said.
"It's just a very complicated story that can't be reduced to any one overriding factor," Rotolo said.
When looking at men and women of all ages, Pew found that the gender gap has narrowed since 2007. The same percentage of women and men — 70% — identify with a religion, down from 86% and 79%, respectively. Though the gap has shrunk, when looking at other indicators, women still outpace men in terms of prayer frequency and the importance they place on religion, according to Pew. Still, that shrinking gap is due to women becoming less religious at a higher rate than men, Pew found, rather than a growth in religiosity among men.
Pew's report says it's too soon to tell whether the findings about young people's religious life are a blip or the start of a larger trend, noting scholars study religious change over decades. For now, the report advises taking the long view.
"There's definitely no signs that today's young adults are way more religious or really any more religious than young people of the same age a decade or more ago," Rotolo said.
