Spirit Research

Youngest U.S. adults report higher worship attendance than most age groups.

A Pew Research Center analysis found that 41% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 22 attend religious services at least monthly, a higher share than in most other age groups, Anabaptist World reports. The figure compares with 33% of U.S. adults overall and 43% of people born before 1950.

The Oct. 28 analysis presents a mixed picture of religious practice among young adults, according to Anabaptist World. Pew senior researcher Chip Rotolo called the attendance figure "pretty remarkably high" but noted that it came from a small group and differed sharply from the result for slightly older adults.

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Older young adults report lower attendance#

Among adults ages 23 to 26, 27% said they attended services at least monthly, Anabaptist World reports. That group also had the lowest figures of any age group in the study for daily prayer, at 26%, and for saying religion was very important, at 27%.

Half of the 23- to 26-year-olds identified with a religion, compared with 59% of those ages 18 to 22, according to Anabaptist World. The youngest adults were still below the overall U.S. figure of about 69% on that measure.

Daily prayer was also less common among the youngest adults than in the population as a whole. Anabaptist World reports that 34% of respondents ages 18 to 22 said they prayed daily, compared with 46% of all U.S. adults surveyed.

The figures leave questions about change#

The youngest adults were no more religious than people in the same age range in 2014, according to the Pew analysis cited by The Christian Post. Both young adult groups were substantially less religious than people their ages in 2007, the analysis found.

The Christian Post reports that Pew used data from its 2026 National Public Opinion Reference Survey and its 2025 Cross-Sectional Engagement Survey. Researchers compared those results with earlier Pew surveys, including studies from 2007, 2014 and 2023-24.

Rotolo told Anabaptist World that the youngest adults' higher religiousness compared with those just above them could have several explanations, including living at home or retaining values from their upbringing. He told Deseret News that the findings leave open what happens as those young adults leave home or start college.

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