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Increase in people identifying as having No Religion

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    #32
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,736 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Mellor wrote: »
    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.

    I suspect the peak also relates to the age group that are filling out the census for the first time themselves rather than having it filled on on their behalf by their parents. Realistically, most of those under 18 and many of those still living at home after this will have their religious affiliation declared for them by the person filling out the form who is more likely a self describing Catholic. If the census was carried out individually and in private by those at a younger age, I'd guess the peak would be further back.


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    #33
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    smacl wrote: »
    I suspect the peak also relates to the age group that are filling out the census for the first time themselves rather than having it filled on on their behalf by their parents. Realistically, most of those under 18 and many of those still living at home after this will have their religious affiliation declared for them by the person filling out the form who is more likely a self describing Catholic. If the census was carried out individually and in private by those at a younger age, I'd guess the peak would be further back.
    I think not. You might find a higher percentage of unbelievers in the 15-19 age bracket than you see at present, but I'd still expect the peak to be in the 25-29 bracket.


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    #34
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


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

    That's why I quoted it to show the change.


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    #35
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    beauf wrote: »
    That's why I quoted it to show the change.
    Ah, sorry. Misunderstood you.


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    #36
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    From a schools point of view you'd have to everyone who is not RC, that is (all other religions + no religions) and the rate of change, as impetus to change the school patronage.

    I seem remember a local headmaster commenting they had 50+ different nationalities in their school.


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    #37
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    beauf wrote: »
    From a schools point of view you'd have to everyone who is not RC, that is (all other religions + no religions) and the rate of change, as impetus to change the school patronage.
    This, plus modelling of the kind exemplified by Mellor in this thread, which suggests that the proportion of unbelievers is not only much higher than before but is going to continue rising strongly for the forseeable future. That's very relevant to long-term planning.


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    #38
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I would expect the rate of decline in RC will rapidly as the clergy is vanishing. But even with the decline in 10 yrs RC will still be dominant.

    Religion should not be in state schools regardless of that.


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    #39
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,736 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    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.

    While this is a perfectly valid point what it highlights is that the implications of self identifying as a Catholic in today's society are very different to those of times past. For example, if we look at attitudes to same sex marriage and contraception, it is clear that most Irish Catholics take a moral stance very different to the dogmatic Vatican line trotted out by the RCC. As such, I wonder what meaningful use the results of this census can be put to. So while I wouldn't advocate changing the question, if there is more information that we as a society would like to know about ourselves, we should ask some additional more specific questions rather than reading the tea leaves. For example, one of the more common uses we see for this data is to support or not the Church's dominant position in the school system. If we want to know whether our society would like the church to continue running our schools it is a question we should ask directly rather trying to infer a preference based on nominal religious affiliation.

    I don't know how the questions would be worded, but one or two additions relating to secularity as opposed to religion would seem sensible.


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    #40
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,736 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    I think not. You might find a higher percentage of unbelievers in the 15-19 age bracket than you see at present, but I'd still expect the peak to be in the 25-29 bracket.

    Why so?


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    #41
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I wonder if people had the options

    Roman Catholic
    Catholic
    Christian


    With the differences explained. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholicism how it would split the RC.


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    #42
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    smacl wrote: »
    Why so?

    Teenagers... :rolleyes:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLuEY6jN6gY


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    #43
    Mellor
    Registered Users Posts: 39,170 ✭✭✭✭Mellor


    smacl wrote: »
    Mellor wrote: »
    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.

    I suspect the peak also relates to the age group that are filling out the census for the first time themselves rather than having it filled on on their behalf by their parents. Realistically, most of those under 18 and many of those still living at home after this will have their religious affiliation declared for them by the person filling out the form who is more likely a self describing Catholic. If the census was carried out individually and in private by those at a younger age, I'd guess the peak would be further back.
    Probably not tbh. Of people 25-29 who identified as NR, most likely developed that opinion in their adult life, had they had their own private census at 15, they'd prob have been content to stick down RC.

    I'd guess the % of adults doing their own form is similar between 20-24 and 25-29 - slightly different but not massively so


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    #44
    Mellor
    Registered Users Posts: 39,170 ✭✭✭✭Mellor


    beauf wrote: »
    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

    Your first post was referring to the previous census. Some of the conclusions in the article were ridiculous.

    The greatest % increase is useless as a measure of "fastest growing". What is people declaring "Jedi" went from 5 people to 20 people. 300% increase. Fastest growing or irrelevant minority?
    Total numbers are pointless too given population growth. Only total % changes is halfway logical.

    And extrapolating the increase in muslims out to 2043 was silly. As we can see from the actual results, they got that wrong.

    I'm not sure what the relevance of the dual citizens /migrants is. Most likely the majority of them declared a religion. They'd only be a net NR% increase if there was a greater rate of NR among them. I'd imagine the Brazilians (largest group) were mostly catholic


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    #45
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 28,260 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    Possibly if there are adults living in the same household as the person who fills in the form, there should be a way for those adults to indicate that they agree with the information that has been provided on their behalf.


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    #46
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,736 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Mellor wrote: »
    Probably not tbh. Of people 25-29 who identified as NR, most likely developed that opinion in their adult life, had they had their own private census at 15, they'd prob have been content to stick down RC.

    Not saying you're wrong, but what's the logic behind that? My own limited experience from my daughter's friends at that age was that while they were going to a Catholic school and no doubt were listed as Catholic by their parents most of them have no use for the church when asked. I suspect that while some would consider themselves Catholic as a default position, as many would not due to the authoritarian and often regressive position of the church. What strikes me a very different from the generation that I grew up with is the number of openly gay school children and the marked intolerance of their peers to homophobia. I don't know how widespread this is, but would guess it is a growing trend, and one where the RCC has managed to alienate itself from this generation following their stance on same sex marriage. Pure speculation, but I reckon the RCC are going to lose out to the more liberal Christian denominations over time as well as to atheism.


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    #47
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Mellor wrote: »
    Your first post was referring to the previous census. Some of the conclusions in the article were ridiculous.

    The greatest % increase is useless as a measure of "fastest growing". What is people declaring "Jedi" went from 5 people to 20 people. 300% increase. Fastest growing or irrelevant minority?
    Total numbers are pointless too given population growth. Only total % changes is halfway logical.

    And extrapolating the increase in muslims out to 2043 was silly. As we can see from the actual results, they got that wrong.

    I'm not sure what the relevance of the dual citizens /migrants is. Most likely the majority of them declared a religion. They'd only be a net NR% increase if there was a greater rate of NR among them. I'd imagine the Brazilians (largest group) were mostly catholic



    Actually that was my second post. My first was saying the pattern of immigration had changed. it has changed between census and it wasn't what I had assume (experienced either).

    That was the point of showing articles from the last census and this latest one. How some things have changed as expected and some things haven't. Which means that planning around rates of change is a bit of a lottery. Though the large the total number the less likely it is to change. Which is why RC will fall but will still be a significant maybe even still largest group. Also why non religion is likely to continue to grow.

    But much of this thread is making assumptions. I can't say ridiculous or irrelevant to another assumption because it doesn't suit my argument. If you ever done stats, or data mining, it often shows up something different than you are expecting. As we can see between census the pattern of immigration has changed significantly for those groups.

    I can appreciate most here are solely interested in No Religion and RC. I'm just interested in the other groups aswell.


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    #48
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    smacl wrote: »
    Not saying you're wrong, but what's the logic behind that? My own limited experience from my daughter's friends at that age was that while they were going to a Catholic school and no doubt were listed as Catholic by their parents most of them have no use for the church when asked. I suspect that while some would consider themselves Catholic as a default position, as many would not due to the authoritarian and often regressive position of the church. What strikes me a very different from the generation that I grew up with is the number of openly gay school children and the marked intolerance of their peers to homophobia. I don't know how widespread this is, but would guess it is a growing trend, and one where the RCC has managed to alienate itself from this generation following their stance on same sex marriage. Pure speculation, but I reckon the RCC are going to lose out to the more liberal Christian denominations over time as well as to atheism.

    I think we're seeing new patterns. There's probably still a lingering RC link with parents and middle aged. That keeps their kids still in touch with RC.

    But the RC church itself shows no interest in changing or disassociating itself from old scandals or obsolete ideas and values. Its seems to be entrenching into a hardcore even more fervent group and isolating the moderates or the less committed. Its actively pushing them away. You might not see this if you have no involvement with the RC.

    As such I think we'll see these patterns, fall away into a more consistent decline across all ages. You'll see the moderates fall away with a hardcore remaining. Unless of course the RC actually does a radical re-inventing of itself. But can't see that happening myself. Its seems to be self destructing.


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    #49
    Mellor
    Registered Users Posts: 39,170 ✭✭✭✭Mellor


    smacl wrote: »
    Not saying you're wrong, but what's the logic behind that? My own limited experience from my daughter's friends at that age was that while they were going to a Catholic school and no doubt were listed as Catholic by their parents most of them have no use for the church when asked. I suspect that while some would consider themselves Catholic as a default position, as many would not due to the authoritarian and often regressive position of the church.
    A few reasons, is consider myself as having no religion, as would a lot of my friends would too, but if you asked me at in my teens, I'd have prob stuck down catholic in a blink without thinking , I'd imagine a lot of similar age would too.
    It's a mature, adult realisation. It's not something kids are bothered with.
    As with the gay acceptance you mentioned, the level of NR is no doubt increasing among teens. But I think others will continue only make that decision in their mid-20s


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    #50
    Mellor
    Registered Users Posts: 39,170 ✭✭✭✭Mellor


    beauf wrote: »
    Actually that was my second post. My first was saying the pattern of immigration had changed. it has changed between census and it wasn't what I had assume (experienced either).
    The first linked to old articles too. I didn't bother quoting both.
    General the assumptions were ba.

    But much of this thread is making assumptions. I can't say ridiculous or irrelevant to another assumption because it doesn't suit my argument. If you ever done stats, or data mining, it often shows up something different than you are expecting. As we can see between census the pattern of immigration has changed significantly for those groups.
    We're referring to the actual results, not assumptions about the next one.
    The assumptions were in the article you linked, which turned out to be quite bad.


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    #51
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Mellor wrote: »
    A few reasons, is consider myself as having no religion, as would a lot of my friends would too, but if you asked me at in my teens, I'd have prob stuck down catholic in a blink without thinking , I'd imagine a lot of similar age would too.
    It's a mature, adult realisation. It's not something kids are bothered with.
    As with the gay acceptance you mentioned, the level of NR is no doubt increasing among teens. But I think others will continue only make that decision in their mid-20s

    I don't think you are around kids that much. Most I know have zero interest before secondary school.


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    #52
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Mellor wrote: »
    ...We're referring to the actual results, not assumptions about the next one...

    Actually no we're extrapolating future trends based on that census. Its still assumptions.


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    #53
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I kinda surprised I would have assumed there would be far greater shift from RC to no Religion based on how much activity online about non religion.


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    #54
    darjeeling
    Registered Users Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    Among younger working age adults (25-44), only 73% were born in Ireland and 14% have no religion. We don't yet know what percentage would be Catholic, but in 2011 it was 80%, so it will now be lower. In 2011, 32% had degrees.

    Among the over-65s, 92% were born in Ireland (most of the rest were UK born) and 3% have no religion. In 2011, 91% of this age group were Catholic, and 10% had degrees.

    These growing differences between generations mirror those seen in the US, UK and other Western European countries. As there, we've also seen a breakdown in confidence in established political parties here. But we haven't seen the kind of backlash movements that led to Brexit, Trump and might yet elect Marine le Pen.

    I wonder why is that?


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    #55
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,470 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    beauf wrote: »
    Actually no we're extrapolating future trends based on that census. Its still assumptions.

    Perhaps, however you can use past census data to see that there's been a steady decline in catholic's in Ireland, this is also reflected in the church's own data about weekly mass attendance which has seen a drop from 50% in 2006 to 30% in 2011..

    Based on the census data we are pretty safe to assume that mass attendance is now below 30% number set in 2001 given the 6% drop in Catholics in all of Ireland since 2011 based on the census data.

    So we can make pretty good guess's on future trends. We merely need to catholic church to survey mass attendance again to merely confirm the drop in weekly mass attendance.

    Come the census in another few years I'd expect to see the catholic percentage dropping another few percentage points,

    Given the highest group of non-religious are in the 20-30 age bracket and this bracket are also the biggest group putting kids into school their kids are also likely to be non-religious over time which will only reinforce the drop in Catholics in Ireland.


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    #56
    Mellor
    Registered Users Posts: 39,170 ✭✭✭✭Mellor


    beauf wrote: »
    I don't think you are around kids that much. Most I know have zero interest before secondary school.
    Zero interest in what?
    I've no idea what point you are making there tbh

    Kids don't need an interest in religion to be aware that they "are catholic". They will remember making confirmation or communion too.
    Also the age groups in question were 10-14, and 15-19, that's mostly secondary school.


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    #57
    Mellor
    Registered Users Posts: 39,170 ✭✭✭✭Mellor


    beauf wrote: »

    Actually no we're extrapolating future trends based on that census. Its still assumptions.
    No really. Sure there's sone slight speculation but most piste are reporting and results - not assumptions


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    #58
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I think you'd argue over "hello" my point is they are not terribly interested in RC even before their teens. Try keeping the Xmas (non religious we know) going in world of Amazon, and digital downloads, media, and classmates of other religions rejection of it. then RC is the least interesting thing for kids in the modern world even before their teens. Confirmation and Communion are largely detached events from the RC religion these days.


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    #59
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Cabaal wrote: »
    Perhaps, however you can use past census data to see that there's been a steady decline in catholic's in Ireland, this is also reflected in the church's own data about weekly mass attendance which has seen a drop from 50% in 2006 to 30% in 2011..

    Based on the census data we are pretty safe to assume that mass attendance is now below 30% number set in 2001 given the 6% drop in Catholics in all of Ireland since 2011 based on the census data.

    So we can make pretty good guess's on future trends. We merely need to catholic church to survey mass attendance again to merely confirm the drop in weekly mass attendance.

    Come the census in another few years I'd expect to see the catholic percentage dropping another few percentage points,

    Given the highest group of non-religious are in the 20-30 age bracket and this bracket are also the biggest group putting kids into school their kids are also likely to be non-religious over time which will only reinforce the drop in Catholics in Ireland.

    I'm not sure why you're re-stating the obvious.

    I'm just saying it all assumptions that trends in the data will continue. They largely will where the data is large, where the data is small, the pattern is more likely to change. As been shown by the earlier commentary on it.

    I would never have though that immigration from Brazil was a thing. maybe there's hope for the soccer team yet. That's not an assumption that's reporting and results...


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    #60
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    darjeeling wrote: »
    Among younger working age adults (25-44), only 73% were born in Ireland and 14% have no religion. We don't yet know what percentage would be Catholic, but in 2011 it was 80%, so it will now be lower. In 2011, 32% had degrees.

    Among the over-65s, 92% were born in Ireland (most of the rest were UK born) and 3% have no religion. In 2011, 91% of this age group were Catholic, and 10% had degrees.

    These growing differences between generations mirror those seen in the US, UK and other Western European countries. As there, we've also seen a breakdown in confidence in established political parties here. But we haven't seen the kind of backlash movements that led to Brexit, Trump and might yet elect Marine le Pen.

    I wonder why is that?

    Maybe because you're looking for politics in Religion & Spirituality forum? ;)

    I don't think the modern Irish society is highly political. Maybe because we don't have much choice. Not much choice then maybe not change things?

    Its like the decline of RC is mainly a meh issue for most people. School places is really what the're interested in.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Ou3lAGl-M


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    #61
    darjeeling
    Registered Users Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    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.

    There must be quite a lot of couples where one is religious and the other isn't. Not least because there are getting on for ~50k fewer women with no religion than men. Maybe some of these couples are putting their children down as religious?


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