Denominational Mobility: Current Patterns and Recent Trends

This paper analyzes current patterns of intergenerational denominational mobility and trends in affiliation (or no affiliation), by merging 5 years of national survey data and using log linear modeling techniques. Results indicate that denominational mobility is influenced by a set of factors-such as the Catholic-Protestant-Jewish cleavage and geographic region, whose influence has remained constant in recent times. The only major trend indicated is toward an increasing choice of no religious affiliation; yet even here there has been a constant tendency for those raised with no affiliation to adopt one.