Religion and Attitudes toward Childlessness in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 0192513X2199414
Author(s):  
Jeremy E. Uecker ◽  
Rebecca Bonhag ◽  
J. J. Burtt ◽  
Hannah R. Evans ◽  
Amanda D. Hernandez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Religious Commitment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Attendance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Religious Salience ◽  
Family Growth ◽  
Using Data

Attitudes toward childlessness have received little attention from social scientists even as childlessness as a family form has become more popular. One key predictor of childlessness attitudes is religious commitment, though few studies have examined this association in-depth. Using data from two recent, national datasets—the National Survey of Family Growth and the Survey of U.S. Catholics and Family Life—we assess the relationships between individuals’ religious characteristics and various attitudes about their own and others’ childlessness, as well as how these factors may vary across gender. We find strong associations between religious affiliation, religious attendance, and religious salience, and each of the outcomes such that religious commitment tends to be associated with more negative attitudes toward childlessness. Interactions across gender were rare and the direction of the interactions was mixed. Religion is a pivotal factor in perpetuating pronatalist attitudes in the United States among both men and women.

Religion and Happiness

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hout ◽  
Andrew Greeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Using Data ◽  
International Social

This chapter discusses the link between happiness and religion. It draws on meaning-and-belonging theory to deduce that a religious affiliation heightens happiness through participation in collective religious rituals. Attendance and engagement appear key: a merely nominal religious affiliation makes people little happier. Notably, two religious foundations of happiness—affiliation with organized religious groups and attendance at services—have fallen. Softened religious engagement, then, may contribute to the slight downturn in general happiness. In fact, steady happiness is reported among those who participate frequently in religious services, but falling levels among those who are less involved. The chapter also considers the association between religion and happiness outside the United States using data from the International Social Survey Program, an international collaborative survey to which the General Social Survey contributes the American data.

scholarly journals Sexual Abstinence in the United States: Cohort Trends in Abstaining from Sex While Never Married for U.S. Women Born 1938 to 1983

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802312090847
Author(s):  
Lawrence L. Wu ◽  
Steven P. Martin ◽  
Paula England ◽  
Nicholas D. E. Mark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sexual Abstinence ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Never Married ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
Family Growth ◽  
Using Data

In this data visualization, the authors document trends in abstaining from sex while never married for U.S. women born 1938–1939 to 1982–1983. Using data from the six most recent National Surveys of Family Growth, the authors’ estimates suggest that for women born in the late 1930s and early 1940s, 48 percent to 58 percent reported abstaining from sex while never married. Abstinence then declined rapidly among women born in the late 1940s through the early 1960s, leveling off at between 9 percent and 12 percent for more recent birth cohorts. Thus, for U.S. women born between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s, roughly one in nine abstained from sex while never married.

Seasonal Patterns of Spontaneous Abortion

1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey E. Kallan ◽  
Eugene A. Enneking
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Spontaneous Abortion ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Seasonal Pattern ◽  
The United States ◽  
Seasonal Patterns ◽  
Family Growth ◽  
Using Data

SummaryThe presence of a seasonal pattern of spontaneous abortion in the United States was found using data from the two most recent cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth (USA). The pattern was bimodal with peaks in March and August.

scholarly journals Starting a Family

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Kessler ◽  
Benjamin M. Craig ◽  
Christopher Saigal ◽  
Gwendolyn P. Quinn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Growth ◽  
The Future ◽  
Using Data

Compared with previous generations in the United States, men today are starting families later in life and having fewer children. As a result birthrates in the United States have dropped sharply, and some men never make the transition into parenthood. Using data from the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, this study examines the characteristics of childless men in the United States between the ages of 15 and 44 ( N = 6,168) and whether these men want to have a child sometime in the future. Our main finding is that the majority of childless men want a child someday; however, by the age of 45 more than 1 in 7 still remain childless.

Public Opinion and Religion: Environmental Attitudes in the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason M. Pudlo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Action ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Environmental Behaviors ◽  
International Context ◽  
Religious Networks ◽  
The Relationship

The study of the relationship between religion and attitudes on the environment is a growing area of academic inquiry and combines research from political scientists, sociologists, and religious historians. Researchers in this area seek to better understand how religion influences attitudes on the environment or environmental policy and if religion motivates environmental action or behaviors. Key to this area of study is defining what religion is and deciding how to measure environmental attitudes. Is religion identified through religious affiliation, religious beliefs, religious networks and communication, or other criteria? Relatedly, are environmental attitudes understood as support for particular environmental policies, willingness to sacrifice to protect nature, or personal environmental behaviors such as recycling? Social scientists have attempted to answer these questions through an overview of key works in the study of religion and the environment in the United States. For additional perspective, these works are placed into their religious and international context to show where, if at all, religiously motivated environmental attitudes in the United States differ from those around the world.

scholarly journals Visualizing Change in Ordinal Measures: Religious Attendance in the United States (1972–2018)

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802311990006
Author(s):  
Michael Lee Wood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Relative Increase ◽  
Religious Attendance ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Over Time

The figure plots self-reports of religious attendance using data from the General Social Survey (1972–2018), contributing to current debates about how religiosity is changing in the United States by clearly showing the relative increase or decrease of each level of religious attendance over time. The main new insight is that the observed decline in religious attendance in the United States has been driven primarily by a large increase in people reporting never attending religious services and a corresponding decrease in people reporting weekly attendance, rather than uniform changes across different levels. Some categories, such as attendance once a month, have seen virtually no change. More generally, the figure may be used as a template for plotting other ordinal measures over time, such as political attitudes or ideology.

scholarly journals The Ideological and Religious Bases of Attitudes Toward Pope Francis in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Federico
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Leader ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Mass Opinion ◽  
Political Right

Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has achieved influence as a religious leader while also impacting political discussions through his teachings on social justice and environmental matters. In the United States, his teachings on these topics have generated some controversy among right-leaning figures. In the present study, I look at whether this controversy is reflected in mass opinion about Pope Francis. Using data from three national surveys of Americans, I find that individuals who identify with the political right evaluate Francis more negatively. Qualifying this, Catholic religious affiliation weakens the tendency for right-wing identifiers to evaluate Francis more negatively, while strengthening the tendency for those high in religiosity to evaluate the pope positively. Finally, consistent with the idea that politically-aware individuals are more likely to make ideologically-informed judgments, the relationship between identification with the political right and negative evaluations of Pope Francis was stronger among the politically engaged.

Migration and the Internet

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas John Cooke ◽  
Ian Shuttleworth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Unobserved Heterogeneity ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Using Data ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Dynamics Models

It is widely presumed that information and communication technologies, or ICTs, enable migration in several ways; primarily by reducing the costs of migration. However, a reconsideration of the relationship between ICTs and migration suggests that ICTs may just as well hinder migration; primarily by reducing the costs of not moving.  Using data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics, models that control for sources of observed and unobserved heterogeneity indicate a strong negative effect of ICT use on inter-state migration within the United States. These results help to explain the long-term decline in internal migration within the United States.

scholarly journals Challenges in Bridge Health Monitoring: A Review

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 4336
Author(s):  
Piervincenzo Rizzo ◽  
Alireza Enshaeian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Monitoring ◽  
Highway Bridges ◽  
The United States ◽  
Anomalous Behavior ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Bridge Health Monitoring ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Many ◽  
Major Factors

Bridge health monitoring is increasingly relevant for the maintenance of existing structures or new structures with innovative concepts that require validation of design predictions. In the United States there are more than 600,000 highway bridges. Nearly half of them (46.4%) are rated as fair while about 1 out of 13 (7.6%) is rated in poor condition. As such, the United States is one of those countries in which bridge health monitoring systems are installed in order to complement conventional periodic nondestructive inspections. This paper reviews the challenges associated with bridge health monitoring related to the detection of specific bridge characteristics that may be indicators of anomalous behavior. The methods used to detect loss of stiffness, time-dependent and temperature-dependent deformations, fatigue, corrosion, and scour are discussed. Owing to the extent of the existing scientific literature, this review focuses on systems installed in U.S. bridges over the last 20 years. These are all major factors that contribute to long-term degradation of bridges. Issues related to wireless sensor drifts are discussed as well. The scope of the paper is to help newcomers, practitioners, and researchers at navigating the many methodologies that have been proposed and developed in order to identify damage using data collected from sensors installed in real structures.

Integration to Inclusion in Hong Kong: Not an Easy Progression

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Peter Westwood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Inclusive Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Academic Standards ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Large Class Size ◽  
Inclusive Schooling ◽  
Education In Hong Kong

Abstract This article describes the evolution of inclusive education in Hong Kong, moving from segregation via integration to inclusion. The outside influence of education policies and trends from Britain, Australia, and the United States are identified, and the current situation is described. In particular, obstacles that are encountered on the route to inclusion are compared with those found in other countries. These obstacles include large class size, teachers’ often negative attitudes, parents’ expectations, teachers’ lack of expertise for adapting the curriculum and for providing differentiated teaching, and ongoing conflicts between the notion of ‘inclusive schooling for all’ and the ‘academic standards agenda’.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document