Commentary April 5, 2022

For Gen Z, Religious Pluralism Will Require Bridging the Religious-Secular Divide

Daniel A. Cox

A photo of a spiral ceiling made up of mosaic glass windows.

The Aspen Institute

For Generation Z, American religious life has been defined by its diversity. And religious pluralism has been as much practice as principle.

Young adults today have close friends and family members spanning a variety of religious identities and beliefs. In a survey conducted by the Survey Center on American Life, we found that nearly one in five (17%) of all marriages in the last decade have been among people of different faith traditions. If you count marriages between religious and non-religious people, the number of “interfaith” couples rises to nearly one in three (32%). In fact, marital relationships between religious and non-religious people are nearly as common as those between people of different faiths.

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Survey Reports

Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields
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Strangers Next Door: The Decline of Neighborhood Socializing and the Class Divide in Belonging

Acknowledgment The American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life is grateful to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for its generous support of this research. As Americans spend more of their time online, the neighborhood—once a primary physical location for real-world socialization—is playing less of a central role than ever before. Since

Daniel A. Cox, Kelsey Eyre Hammond
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Individuality and Moral Behavior: A Generational Divide in Moral Judgments and Self-Expression

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Daniel A. Cox
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A new survey from the Survey Center on American Life shows Americans are changing course on major cultural issues—from immigration and gay rights to gender roles and public trust.

Daniel A. Cox, Kelsey Eyre Hammond
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A new report by the Survey Center on American life finds that safety concerns and declining trust are reshaping modern dating, leaving many singles feeling pessimistic about their prospects. Sharp gender divides in attitudes toward dating apps, trust, and relationships reveal how these challenges are redefining the search for connection.