For reporting purposes at Barna, we often combine atheists and agnostics into one group, which we call skeptics….<\/p>\n
[There]..are five demographic shifts among skeptics in the past two decades.<\/p>\n
They are younger. Skeptics today are, on average, younger than in the past. Twenty years ago, 18 percent of skeptics were under 30 years old. Today that proportion has nearly doubled to 34 percent\u201d\u201dnearly one-quarter of the total U.S. population (23%, compared to 17% in 1991). By the same token, the proportion of skeptics who are 65 or older has been cut in half, down to just 7 percent of the segment.<\/p>\n
They are more educated. Today\u2019s skeptics tend to be better educated than in the past. Two decades ago, one-third of skeptics were college graduates, but today half of the group has a college degree.<\/p>\n
More of them are women….<\/p>\n