Toward Religious Polarization? Time Effects on Religious Commitment in U.S., UK, and Canadian Regions

Abstract

Recent theoretical and empirical evidence has been pointing toward a new development with regard to religion in the Western world: one of polarization between secular and religious individuals. Statistical analyses test the existence of such a trend from 1985 until 2009–2010 at a regional level within three separate national contexts: the United States, the UK, and Canada. Repeated cross-sectional survey data are studied by means of a series of multinomial logit and logistic regression models with generated predicted probabilities. The results show the existence of three distinct patterns of trends since the mid-1980s, one of which consists of religious polarization as measured by the present study: the proportional decline of nominal affiliates coupled with no decline or an increase of unaffiliated and religiously committed individuals. This trend can be found in Great Britain as well as in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.