Religious Mobility in the UK

SUMMARY For the last 30 years, the question of religious mobility has generated increasing division and controversy among social scientists. This is particularly the case among sociologists of religion, where an on-going debate concerning the expected growth in conservative Protestant churches at the expense of their more liberal colleagues has dominated the literature. Using recent data from both Great Britain and Northern Ireland and employing a technique of analysis not hitherto adopted in the religious mobility literature, this paper examines the nature and extent of religious mobility within the UK. The results suggest that, whereas the majority of church members never change their religion of origin, for the religiously mobile, religious disaffiliation is by far the most common outcome.