Religion
September 28, 2023
America’s Crisis of Confidence: Rising Mistrust, Conspiracies, and Vaccine Hesitancy After COVID-19
Findings from the May 2023 American Perspectives Survey
America is experiencing a crosscutting crisis of expertise and scientific distrust accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic that poses significant challenges to democratic debate and public decision-making Continue Reading →
January 30, 2023
Reorganized Religion with Bob Smietana
America’s rapidly changing religious landscape has spurred many questions about the cause of its decline and predictions about what the future holds. In his new book, Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters (Worthy Publishing, 2022), Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana follows the decline of mainstream Christian denominations, the rise of “disorganized disbelievers,” and how politics shapes religious communities and what this means for the the future of our civil society. Continue Reading →
January 5, 2023
Faith After the Pandemic: How COVID-19 Changed American Religion
Findings from the 2022 American Religious Benchmark Survey
The Survey Center on American Life at AEI teamed up with researchers at NORC at the University of Chicago to measure religious affiliation and attendance both before the pandemic (2018 to March 2020) and again in spring 2022, revealing who remained at the pews, who returned to the pews, and who left. Continue Reading →
July 28, 2022
The Democratic Party’s Transformation: More Diverse, Educated, and Liberal but Less Religious
The Democratic Party has experienced seismic demographic changes over the past few decades; becoming less Christian, more liberal, more educated, and more racially and ethnically diverse. These changes profoundly impact the Democratic Party’s future political priorities and electoral fortunes. Continue Reading →
July 8, 2022
Why a Modest Decline in Religious Belief is Important
Another poll, another record broken in the country’s continuing religious descent. A new Gallup poll finds that 81 percent of Americans say that they believe in God, representing a six point drop over the last five years. Continue Reading →
May 23, 2022
Jews and the Faith of Their Children
Just half of Jews in America today believe it is important for children to be brought up in a religion so they can learn good values, making the Jewish community an outlier compared to other religious traditions. Continue Reading →
April 14, 2022
Jewish Religious Exceptionalism
Data from the Survey Center on American Life’s new American National Family Life Survey reveals that while Jews heavily embrace cultural traditions such as foodways and festivals, their levels of engagement with conventional forms of religious practice, such as regular worship and religious marriage ceremonies, are much lower than national norms. Continue Reading →
March 24, 2022
Generation Z and the Future of Faith in America
The religious and social experiences of young adults today are entirely different than previous generations. New family dynamics and parenting choices are reshaping the religious experiences of young people, setting them on a very different trajectory than past generations and making Generation Z the least religious generation. Continue Reading →
March 1, 2022
Diversity and Disconnection
Americans who live in areas packed with neighborhood amenities tend to have a more diverse set of friends and acquaintances. Continue Reading →
February 9, 2022
Emerging Trends and Enduring Patterns in American Family Life
Family dynamics are always evolving, but the emergence of new technologies, shifting economic realities, new cultural sensibilities, and social arrangements have reshaped family life dramatically. But there are enduring patterns in American family life as well. Women still do far more of the household chores, including cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Formative experiences, such as divorce, parental favoritism, and relationships have far-reaching influence. Continue Reading →
Generation Uncoupled
Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection
Buy NowSurvey Reports
Daniel A. Cox
July 23, 2026
A Digital Divide in American Adolescence: Gender, Class, and the New Teenage Experience
If teenage years once represented a time of rebellion, teenagers’ lives today are marked less by pushing boundaries and more by building their own. Many teenage experiences are less common than they once were—dating, working a part-time job, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol are less common experiences. The 2026 American Teenagers Survey from the Continue Reading →
Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields
April 27, 2026
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 Continue Reading →
In the News
September 11, 2026 Deseret News
Perspective: What ‘never forget’ means 25 years later
September 10, 2026 The Cut
My Boyfriend Is My Only Friend
September 9, 2026 The Hill
Elections won’t fix America’s political divisions
September 6, 2026 HuffPost









