A new study of more than 9,000 British people in their forties, published today by UCL Institute of Education (IOE), shows that 60 per cent of the women but only 35 per cent of the men believe in life after death.
More than half (54%) of the men surveyed said they were atheists or agnostics, compared to only a third (34%) of the women.
The survey involved members of the 1970 British Cohort Study, whose lives are being followed by the IOE’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies. The study is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Almost half of those surveyed did not identify with any religion. Most of the remainder said they had a Christian background. A small number of respondents described themselves as Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim or Sikh.
Professor David Voas, who analysed the survey responses, commented: “Among believers, women are also much more likely to be definite than men, and among non-believers, men are much more likely to be definite than women.” For example, not only are men twice as likely as women to say that God does not exist, but male atheists are far more likely than female atheists to say that they definitely do not believe in live after death (63% versus 36%).
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“Some things are clear, however,” he says. “One is that a substantial proportion of teenagers who reported that religion was an important part of their lives at age 16 became relatively unreligious adults. There is some movement in the opposite direction, but not nearly enough to compensate for the losses to religion.”
Professor Voas also points to the very high level of belief in both God and life after death among Muslims. Almost nine in ten (88%) of the small number of Muslims in this survey ”“ only 82 were interviewed ”“ said they knew God really exists and had no doubts about it.
“A high proportion (71%) of those who described themselves as ”˜evangelical’ — Baptists and certain other Christians were included in this category ”“ also had no doubts about God’s existence,” he said. “However, only 33 per cent of those who identified themselves as Roman Catholics had no doubts. And the figure for those affiliated with ”˜mainline’ Christian denominations — Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and United Reformed Church ”“ was even smaller. Only 16 per cent of them said they had no doubts that God exists.”
Read it all and the full paper may be found here [pdf file]