Leaving the Faith: How Religious Switching Changes Pathways to Adulthood among Conservative Protestant Youth

Citation

Glass, Jennifer L.; Sutton, April; & Fitzgerald, Scott T. (2015). Leaving the Faith: How Religious Switching Changes Pathways to Adulthood among Conservative Protestant Youth. Social Currents.

Abstract

Research revealing associations between Conservative Protestantism and lower socioeconomic status is bedeviled by questions of causal inference. Religious switching offers another way to understand the causal ordering of religious participation and demographic markers of class position. In this article, we look at adolescents who change their religious affiliation across four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and then observe their transition to adulthood using four crucial markers—completed educational attainment, age at first marriage, age at first birth, and income at the final wave. Results show that switching out of a Conservative Protestant denomination in adolescence can alter some, but not all, of the negative consequences associated with growing up in a Conservative Protestant household. Specifically, family formation is delayed among switchers, but early cessation of education is not.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F2329496515579764

Reference Type

Journal Article

Journal Title

Social Currents

Author(s)

Glass, Jennifer L.
Sutton, April
Fitzgerald, Scott T.

Year Published

2015

DOI

10.1177/2329496515579764

Reference ID

5645