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Increase in people identifying as having No Religion

Delirium

RTE are tweeting some results from 2016 census and figured these two tweets would be of interest to this forum

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/849926358323122176
https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/849926537176633344

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magicbastarder

i know it's a trivial thing, but i'm struck by the 'identifying as having no religion' and 'number of catholics' wording (i.e. it's not phrased as 'number identifying as catholics').

Wheety

magicbastarder wrote: »

i know it's a trivial thing, but i'm struck by the 'identifying as having no religion' and 'number of catholics' wording (i.e. it's not phrased as 'number identifying as catholics').

True. It's almost like they're saying these people may be Catholic but they ticked the box to say no religion. Probably just a protest tick.

However the Catholics are sure they're ticking the correct box.

Not like a lot of people are filling in the form and still just ticking Catholic because they feel they should, and completing it on behalf of their kids too.

Penn

magicbastarder wrote: »

i know it's a trivial thing, but i'm struck by the 'identifying as having no religion' and 'number of catholics' wording (i.e. it's not phrased as 'number identifying as catholics').

Reading too much into it, tbh. 'Identifying as having no religion' is basically just a "None of the above". The actual census even has it worded the opposite way in one paragraph:

While Ireland remains a predominantly Catholic country,
as clearly illustrated in Figure 8.1, the percentage of the
population who identified as Catholic on the census has
fallen sharply from 84.2 per cent in 2011 to 78.3 per cent
in 2016.
There has been a corresponding rise in the number with
no religion which grew by 73.6 per cent from 269,800 to
468,400, an increase of 198,600.

https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/census-2016-summary-results-part-1-full.pdf

Either way, can't wait to see how Iona et al try to spin this into a positive.

eviltwin

Big increase, wasn't expecting it to be that high and its only going to get higher as time goes on. I'm sure the fall in Catholics will be glossed over by Quinn and co, they will use the 78% as another reason to hold onto their control of schools and hospitals but with nearly a quarter of people in the State following a different belief system you have to wonder how long that control can last.

magicbastarder

Penn wrote: »

Reading too much into it, tbh.

ah yeah, i wasn't trying to suggest motive.

anyway, i'd be interested to see the breakdown by age of the figures. i'd expect a U shaped graph against age, for catholicism - because kids will have their forms filled in by their parents.

toadfly

I ticked the no religion box for the first time last year. Delighted with these figures and the sooner others cop on the better.

fisgon

The Just tick No campaign obviously had an effect, despite some people who were questioning its worth.

Figures are important, and a drop of 6% in the number of Catholics is significant, in only 5 years. It is a clear signal that things are changing, and will give impetus to the campaign for more secular education.

(So of that 78% who say they are Catholic, what proportion is actually believing and practicing, I wonder - maybe 50% of that?)

Delirium

fisgon wrote: »

The Just tick No campaign obviously had an effect, despite some people who were questioning its worth.

Figures are important, and a drop of 6% in the number of Catholics is significant, in only 5 years. It is a clear signal that things are changing, and will give impetus to the campaign for more secular education.

(So of that 78% who say they are Catholic, what proportion is actually believing and practicing, I wonder - maybe 50% of that?)

There's a clear disparity between those that identify as Roman Catholic and those that are practicing seeing as the numbers attending Mass don't line up with the census count for Roman Catholics.

dixiefly

There should be a sub question to the religious won basically asking how many ceremonies (outside funerals) of the chosen religion the person has attended in, say, the previous month. This would better answer the questions posed here.

freshpopcorn

I was actually expecting those ticking no religion to be a lot higher to be honest. That's what I get for spending to much time on Boards!

Orion

Penn wrote: »

Either way, can't wait to see how Iona et al try to spin this into a positive.

You didn't have to wait long

.......

This post has been deleted.

magicbastarder

dixiefly wrote: »

There should be a sub question to the religious won basically asking how many ceremonies (outside funerals) of the chosen religion the person has attended in, say, the previous month. This would better answer the questions posed here.

no; the census is about identification, not about qualification.

sure you'd be using the same measure many religious people use to judge how pious someone is, which is not the same as faith.

Cabaal

Orion wrote: »

You didn't have to wait long

Of course he ignores that according to the Catholic bishops own commissioned survey, 8% of self described "Catholics" don't actually believe in god.

You couldn't make it up.

Also, somebody being "spiritual" or "believing in a god" doesn't mean Lolek Ltd or the catholic church are supported.

Press_Start

I think it's read into quite a bit here. Ireland has moved on but is certainly not a Secular state. As for comment about "copping on" I think it's a little harsh to assume that Religious people are ignorant. I'm not religious myselff but I believe in the spirit that most religions try to pursue, i.e friendship, honesty all that.
Identifying as a religious person is not a negative trait. Likewise not being religious is not inherently positive. I think it's interesting and welcome people rethinking their beliefs and that, it shows forward thinking and lateral thinking and possible healthy discussions also.

fisgon

Orion wrote: »

You didn't have to wait long

Is he assuming that all of those people who say they have a particular religion believe in god? Of course he is ignoring the fact that they don't believe in "God" as he says, but in different gods.

Also, where is the question on the census about being "spiritual"?

darjeeling

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I think the tide is turning a bit.

In the 2011 census just under 6% of people over all declared no religion.

Within age groups, the no-religion figures were 9% of adults between 25 and 40 and 5% of under-fives. That makes it look very likely that non-religious parents of young children were putting their children down as having no religion.

The new preliminary results show almost 10% of people declaring no religion, so the figures this time for parenting-age adults could be closer to 15%, and for under-fives closer to 10%. We'll find out later this year.

Edit:

The census report has this graph:

[not clear if the N/R line shows N/R % of each age group, or % of all N/R split by age group]

RTE highlights this in a blog post, saying the shift is increasingly at odds with a primary school system overwhelmingly run by the Catholic church.

The blog also notes that almost 1/3 people in Dublin city, Galway city identify as having no religion.

https://www.rte.ie/news/special-reports/2017/0406/865826-census-religion-blog/

Peregrinus

Couple of thoughts, in no particular order:

How firm is the identity?

In the 2011 census, there was a rise in the “no religion category” of 44.8%. When the more detailed breakdown was published, it turned out that the no-religionists were not only becoming more numerous, but they were “firming” in their identity. By which I mean, there was a rise in people ticking “no religion”, but a bigger (in percentage terms) rise in people identifying as “agnostic” and a bigger rise still in people identifying as “atheist”. Which I interpret to mean that not only are there more non-religious people, but they are becoming, on average, more confident/assertive in asserting their non-religious identity.

We don’t have that breakdown for the 2016 census as yet, but when it comes it will be interesting to see if this firming-up continues. I predict that it will.

”Not stated”

The rise in the number of people not answering the religion question at all is almost as big as the rise in people answering “no religion”. The “not stated” category is obviously a mixed one. There are people in there from religious traditions who have been wary of identifying themselves to the state. There are people who may or may not be religious but who object to the state asking the question. There are people who have no religion but for some reason don’t want to tick “no religion”; we can only speculate about what their reason might be.

It’s hard to account for the sharp rise in the “not stated” category, but I’m going to hazard two guesses. The first is that it’s an unintended spinoff from the campaign that encouraged non-believers to tick “no religion”. It may be that some people found the arguments somewhat persuasive, but not convincing, and have responded by dropping their former religious identification, but not ticking “no religion”. The other guess is that this could represent the growth of a truly secular cohort of Irish society who have been brought up in families where religiouse belief, practice and identification was simply absent. They’re not interested in religion or religious questions and never have been, and “do you believe?” is a question that they have simply never found any reason to try and answer.

As I say, they’re just wild guesses.

Breakdown by age.

Darjeeling links to a handy chart which shows, if I am interpreting it correctly, that no-religionists are over-represented in the 20-50 age range, and under-represented above and below that. It’s interesting that unbelief doesn’t seen to pekk until the 35-40 age bracket, which would suggest that the “Mammy factor” is not the principle thing keeping down non-religious identification (unless non-religionists are living at home to a surprisingly late age). What’s more interesting, though, unbelief is at it’s highest in among those in their thirties, who are presumably the parents of children aged under 10, where unbelief is below average. Are unbelieving parents recording their children as believers? I doubt that. The only explanation I can think of is that unbelievers have fewer children, but I can’t see any obvious reason why that should be so.

it would be interesting to compare this chart with a similar one from five years ago, if anybody can find one.

breakdown by nationality

In 2011, nearly 40% of no-religionists were non-Irish. In 2016, that’s down to a bit over 20%. The growth in non-believers is nearly all among Irish citizens.

beauf

Peregrinus wrote: »

...
In 2011, nearly 40% of no-religionists were non-Irish. In 2016, thatâ€™s down to a bit over 20%. The growth in non-believers is nearly all among Irish citizens.

Maybe many of that 40% have become Irish citizens in that time.

Peregrinus

beauf wrote: »

Maybe many of that 40% have become Irish citizens in that time.

Possibly, but I doubt that's a huge factor. The absolute number of non-Irish no-religionist has actually gone up, from just below 100k in 2011 to a bit above 100k in 2016. But the number of Irish no-religionists has risen hugely, from about 170k in 2011 to about 365k in 2016. Even if every single non-Irish no-religionist from 2011 had been naturalised in the meantime and been replaced by a fresh cohort of 100k unbelieving immigrants, which doesn't strike me as very likely, that would still only account for half the rise in Irish-citizen no-religionists. I think the rise is largely accounted for by:

- Irish citizens who didn't tick the "no religion" box in 2011 but did in 2016, and

- Irish citizens born since 2011 (presumably, the children of non-believing parents).

the_syco

The current question is pretty much "were you baptized, yes or no?".

And people tick the "yes" that they were baptized.

IMO, the wording should be different.

Peregrinus

The current question is "what is your religion?" There's no mention of baptism, and the options suggested include several religions that do not practice baptism.

Of the nearly 470k people who ticked "no religion", I reckon (as I indicate above) that a large chunk of them were baptised. If I'm right, the evidence that people understand the question to mean "were you baptised?" is not strong.

It may be that the question should be changed, but you're not making a very strong case for it. Statisticians are a conservative bunch. The problem with a change, as far as they're concerned, is that the data from consecutive censuses will no longer be comparable, which means trends and changes can be less reliably discerned. Given that, simply declaring that you think that all the people who ticked a particular box have misunderstood the question (whereas all the people who ticked the "no religion" box are fearless independent thinkers of particularly piercing intelligence) is not likely to be a sufficiently strong case to induce them to change the question.

A statistician might also make the point that it's not for the state to decree what ought to determine someone's religious identity. The purpose of the census is to find out what their religious identification is, and the question should not build in any implicit value judgment about what constitutes a "valid" religious identity and what does not. It's reasonable to go on to ask what a religious identification means in terms of practice, belief, affiliation, etc, but for that kind of information you want to undertake further, qualitative research. The census is not a good place to do that. Without having undertaken that research, simply issuing a pontifical decree to the effect that "they think it means baptism" says rather more about the person issuing the decree than it says about the people ticking the "Catholic" box.

And it is faintly ridiculous to have non-believers pontificating about what tests people should have to pass before their identification as Catholic or Jewish or Muslim or whatever can be accepted as valid. Turn the situation around, and imagine believers seeking to invalidate the identity of professed no-religionists by issuing pronouncements about how they must have understood the question. How does that look to you? Well, that's exactly how you look to other people right now.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that the Irish census question on religion is in pretty standard form, at least for the anglosphere.

Ireland: "What is your religion?"
[Followed by a list of options, including "other, write in your religion" and (last) "no religion".]

UK: "What is your religion?"
[Followed by a list of options, including "no religion" (the first option) and "any other religion, write in" (the last option)]

Australia: "What is the person's religion?"
[Followed by a list of options, including "other - please specify" and (last) "no religion".]

Canada: "What is this person's religion?"
[Respondent is invited to write in a denomination, or check a "no religion" box.]

New Zealand: "What is your religion?"
[Followed by a list of options, including "no religion" (the first option) and "any other religion, write in" (the last option)]

South Africa: "What is the person's religion, denomination or belief?"
[There's a box to fill in, with the instruction "Please write the complete name. If no religion, write 'none'."]

Mellor

magicbastarder wrote: »

i know it's a trivial thing, but i'm struck by the 'identifying as having no religion' and 'number of catholics' wording (i.e. it's not phrased as 'number identifying as catholics').

For the purpose of the census, identify as a catholic makes one a catholic.
Identifying as having no religion, means you identify as having no religion, there is no relevant collective noun.

Some people would argue that they should use atheists as the collective noun, but I think in a strict sense it's not entirely the same.

Wheety wrote: »

True. It's almost like they're saying these people may be Catholic but they ticked the box to say no religion. Probably just a protest tick

However the Catholics are sure they're ticking the correct box.

Not like a lot of people are filling in the form and still just ticking Catholic because they feel they should, and completing it on behalf of their kids too.

Is this sarcasm going over my head, or are you serious?

If the latter, I'd imagine that there are lots of cataholic because they feel they should, or they have to. Due to their parents, the fact that they were baptised, or simple the need to identify with the right group.

dixiefly wrote: »

There should be a sub question to the religious won basically asking how many ceremonies (outside funerals) of the chosen religion the person has attended in, say, the previous month. This would better answer the questions posed here.

No their shouldn't. There's no attendance requirements to maintentain membership.

Just like an atheist doesn't become a catholic if he steps foot inside a church for a wedding or baptism

darjeeling wrote: »

[not clear if the N/R line shows N/R % of each age group, or % of all N/R split by age group]

I think it's clear enough tbh. It's a distribution graph, so it's showing the distribution of the people selecting N/R vrs the distribution of the total population. The total percent add up to 100% for each. It's not the rate of N/R - which could be worked out from that data.

Basically if the lines matched up perfectly then age wouldn't be a factor. But the fact the lines are off shows;

People 50 and over are less likely to identify as N/R,
People from 15 to 49 are more likely to idenify as N/R,
Children 14 and under are less likely to be listed as N/R

I find the below 15 part surprising as you'd expect that people wit kids 0-14, would be in the 15-49 age group themselves. Possibly shows a divide between parents and non-parents

Mellor

darjeeling wrote: »

The blog also notes that almost 1/3 people in Dublin city, Galway city identify as having no religion.

You misread that part.

No religion would probably be about 1/6 in Dublin city. (1/10 nationally)

darjeeling

There's a CSO table giving nos in each age group, and we have the total non-religious count, plus the graph showing how the non-religious are distributed across age groups.

From all that, we can get the proportion within each age group who are non-religious, and compare it to previous years.
The 2016 numbers are only an estimate, but should be reasonably close to the numbers we'll get in October.

The graph looks like this:

That's a big change from last time, but it looks right given the over 70% increase across the board.

Mellor wrote: »

You misread that part.

No religion would probably be about 1/6 in Dublin city. (1/10 nationally)

Sorry, yes, it's 1/3 non-Catholic in Dublin, Galway cities.

Peregrinus

Interesting. The "peak" for no-religionists remains firmly in the 25-29 cohort.

As the group becomes established and matures, you'd expect that peak to flatten and spread out a bit, particularly into later age ranges, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Which I suppose is consistent with the idea that the no-religionists group is not yet mature, i.e. it's still growing strongly through "conversion" of members of other groups.

Mellor

darjeeling wrote: »

The graph looks like this:

.

Nice one with the graph.
Notice across all the years, the % is higher for 0-9 than it is for 10-14. Presumably because the parents of the 0-9 children are c.30 verses c.40 for the older group.
I notice that the slope between the first two data point roughly matches the slope from the 30 to 40 on all graphs.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Interesting. The "peak" for no-religionists remains firmly in the 25-29 cohort.

As the group becomes established and matures, you'd expect that peak to flatten and spread out a bit, particularly into later age ranges, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Which I suppose is consistent with the idea that the no-religionists group is not yet mature, i.e. it's still growing strongly through "conversion" of members of other groups.

Each year the % is growing, so too does the peak.
The 25-29 people peaking in 2006 are choosing the same options in 2016 - now in the 35-39 group, it's just that the current 25-29 group are surpassing them.

In any particular age group, is a different set of people to the same age group in a different year. So I decided to age time shift all the graph results, to see how a given groups choices changes over time. And well, it's quite telling...

Each year sits under the next year, even with the time shift. This shows that the increases in people selecting N/R are not just people making a decision in their youth and sticking with it. Much older people are actively changing their mind. I'd have thought that 50 years old in 1991, who are now 75 year olds would have been set in their ways. The above shows otherwise, the % has nearly doubled.

Two of the lowest N/R rates on all the graphs are children in 1991 and 2001. The vertical red line represents the selections of those children across all years as they aged. From 1.5% in 1991 to 17.5% in 2016, more or less the same people.

From that it's logical that the 35-39 group will be 20-25% in 2026, and the 25-29 group higher again. National average could be 15% or more.

beauf

Peregrinus wrote: »

Possibly, but I doubt that's a huge factor. The absolute number of non-Irish no-religionist has actually gone up, from just below 100k in 2011 to a bit above 100k in 2016. But the number of Irish no-religionists has risen hugely, from about 170k in 2011 to about 365k in 2016. Even if every single non-Irish no-religionist from 2011 had been naturalised in the meantime and been replaced by a fresh cohort of 100k unbelieving immigrants, which doesn't strike me as very likely, that would still only account for half the rise in Irish-citizen no-religionists. I think the rise is largely accounted for by:

- Irish citizens who didn't tick the "no religion" box in 2011 but did in 2016, and

- Irish citizens born since 2011 (presumably, the children of non-believing parents).

The pattern of immigration changed over that time, from eastern European to African, perhaps even now to Middle Eastern.

The second fastest growing religion in Ireland is Orthodox Christianity, where numbers have doubled in the space of five years, rising to 45,223 in 2011. This is almost entirely down to immigration from
the former Soviet bloc states where Orthodox Christianity is dominant.

That would seem to have changed.

Population statistics compiled by the Central Statistics Office confirmed that Islam is now Irelandâ€™s fastest-growing religion and, at its current rate of expansion, it is set to become the second religion in the State after Catholicism by 2043....Irelandâ€™s Muslim population exceeding 100,000 by 2020.

Compared to RC

Roman Catholic, a fall of 132,220 from 2011

129,039 Church of Ireland members in April 2011, an increase of 6.4pc in just five years.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/islam-to-become-irelands-second-religion-by-2043-29874239.html

beauf

Actually correction....

The largest increases in foreign nationals since 2011 were from people born in Romania and Brazil. Meanwhile, the number of people holding dual Irish nationality almost doubled from 55,905 in 2011 to 104,784 in 2016.

Indeed the Census is especially prone to underestimate the numbers of religious minorities of immigrant origin. Therefore, it is of limited use for this purpose.

For example, in a survey of Chinese studentsconducted in 2006, just after the Census night of that year, three in ten of the Chinese reported that they were not included in the Census.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/census-2016-will-get-religion-all-wrong-1.2613938

Peregrinus

beauf wrote: »

The pattern of immigration changed over that time, from eastern European to African, perhaps even now to Middle Eastern . . .

You're quoting a four-year old article which, obviously, doesn't take into account the results of last year's census.

On the basis of the recently-published census figures, Islam is not the fastest-growing religion in Ireland, either in numbers terms (increase of 14,200 versus Orthodoxy increase of 18,000) or in percentage terms (Orthodoxy, Hinduism and "other religions" are all growing faster in percentage terms). On the basis of this weeks figures Islam is currently the third-largest religious identification in Ireland (after "Catholic" and "Church of Ireland") but it will shortly become the fourth, because it's about to be overtaken by Orthodoxy.

(And of course the growth in "no religion" and in "not stated" dwarfs the growth in all the religious identifications, including Orthodoxy.)