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The Vanishing Protestant Majority
Author(s) -
SMITH TOM W.,
KIM SEOKHO
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal for the scientific study of religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1468-5906
pISSN - 0021-8294
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2005.00277.x
Subject(s) - protestantism , immigration , attrition , demography , demographic economics , falling (accident) , population decline , colonialism , population , political science , sociology , psychology , economics , law , medicine , dentistry , psychiatry
Since colonial times, the United States has been a majority Protestant nation. But the proportion Protestant in the population has been falling for over a decade, and Protestants are poised to lose their majority status. This decline results from a decline in the intergenerational retention rate for Protestants and from the attrition of Protestants among the youngest cohorts. Shifts in immigration also contribute to the Protestant decline. We also consider the role of an increasing share of people identifying as generic Christians and as inter‐ or nondenominational.