In the Course of a Lifetime: Tracing Religious Belief, Practice, and Change

5. The Ebb and Flow of Religiousness across the Life Course

80 5 The Ebb and Flow of Religiousness across the Life Course Does religious involvement change over the life course? This is a simple question, but it eludes simple answers because it requires access to long-term longitudinal data spanning many decades of the life course. Longitudinal studies require researchers to have not only the foresight to predict at the inception of a study what questions will be relevant to future scientists but also the patience to plant a seed whose fruit will be harvested only by later generations of researchers. It is not surprising, therefore, that only a few studies in the world include data necessary to trace changes in religiousness from adolescence to old age. The IHD study is one of them.1 THE GENERAL PATTERN OF CHANGE Of the three phases of adulthood (early, middle, and late adulthood), a lot is known about how religiousness changes during the transition from middle to late adulthood. Much cross-sectional data indicates that church attendance increases in old age unless illness or some disability prevents this (see, e.g., McFadden 1999). Studies using national representative cross-sectional survey data (e.g., Hout and Greeley 1987; Rossi 2001) suggest that the steepest rate of increase in religiousness THE EBB AND FLOW OF RELIGIOUSNESS 81 occurs some time between late-middle (age fifties) and late adulthood (late sixties, and seventies). These findings agree with the widely held view that Americans turn to religion increasingly as they age in order to deal with the challenges associated with old age: health problems, spousal bereavement, death anxiety, and the lack of purposefulness that may characterize the postretirement period. Our findings clearly indicate that religiousness increased from latemiddle to late adulthood. (We discuss the coding and ratings of religiousness in the methodological appendix.) As shown in the extreme-right portions of figures 1 and 2, the study participants increased in religiousness from their fifties to their seventies and did so irrespective of whether they were men or women, or whether they came from a mainline Protestant, nonmainline Protestant, or Catholic family background. The gradient of increase in religiousness among our aging participants was not very steep, however. In fact, their increase in religiousness would be hardly noticeable if we were able to meet them personally in their fifties and then again in their seventies. Nonetheless, it was statistically significant .2 Therefore, if we had had longitudinal data confined to the fifteenyear age period between late-middle and late adulthood, our findings would have offered strong support for the assumption that religiousness peaks in old age and that this peak reflects a maturational imperative that transcends sociodemographic characteristics. However, because we have data spanning the entire life course, we know that the increase in religiousness in the second half of adulthood is far from being the whole story. When we look at the pattern for the life course as a whole, it is apparent that late adulthood does not constitute the high point in religiousness (see figures 1 and 2). In late adulthood , in fact, our participants reverted back to the level of religious involvement that characterized them in early adulthood, and these gains still fell short of their levels of religiousness in adolescence.3 It is evident, overall, that the pattern of change is best described as a shallow U-curve, with high levels of religiousness in adolescence and in early and late adulthood and a dip in religiousness in the middle years. As shown in figure 1, the mean level of religiousness among the study participants as a whole decreased from adolescence to early adulthood (age thirties) and from early to middle adulthood (age forties). It then reached a plateau between middle and late-middle adulthood (age midfifties and early sixties), before increasing from late-middle to late adulthood (age late sixties and seventies).4 In other words, there was a noticeable increase in the number of individuals who withdrew Women Men Total 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 1.5 2.5 3.5 Religiousness Adolescence (1930s/’40s) Early adulthood (1958) Middle adulthood (1970) Late-middle adulthood (1982) Late adulthood (1997–2000) Conservative Protestants Mainline Protestants Catholics 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 1.5 2.5 3.5 Religiousness Adolescence (1930s/’40s) Early adulthood (1958) Middle adulthood (1970) Late-middle adulthood (1982) Late adulthood (1997–2000) Figure 1. Mean change in religiousness over...