Moving on Over: Geographic Mobility as a Predictor of Religious Switching and Attendance Frequency in the American Religious Landscape [Born]
Christopher Born
The Catholic University of America
Geographic mobility has been on the rise over the last twenty years. Measuring how location change impacts belief and church attendance is essential in understanding the religious tendencies and potentialities of the growing cohort of the geographically mobile. Toward that end, this paper examines data from the 1988-1991 General Social Survey to determine whether geographic mobility and/or religious switching can predict the frequency with which people attend church services. The first section analyzes geographic mobility and its impact on religious switching. The results of the binary logistic regression support the hypothesis that geographic mobility increases the odds of switching religions. In the second section, religious switching is examined to determine if those who switch religions are more or less likely to be frequent attendees of church services. Previous studies conclude that switchers are more religious on average than non-switchers on measures of belief, church attendance, and religious experience (Hadaway 1980, Roof and McKinney 1987, Hadaway and Marler 1993). It stands to reason that actively choosing one’s religion will lead to heightened participation, however, this does not appear to be the case. A logistic regression analysis of the 1988-1991 GSS survey shows that there is no significant difference in frequency of attendance when examining switchers against non-switchers. The paper concludes in discussing potential reasons for the new findings and implications for future research.
File: Chirs Born - ASREC Paper - 2007.doc [157.00KB]
Published 11/02/2007
Filed under: (2007), *born, @asrec'07, gss, mobility, religious attendance, religious switching