In 1990 just 5% of Americans said they were atheists, agnostics or believed in "nothing in particular". By 2019 some 30% ticked those boxes. The trend was mirrored across the West: in Canada, Britain and France the irreligious share of the population grew steadily for decades. Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University has called it "a dominant trend in demography of recent decades". The most important driver was people abandoning their religion, which had a far bigger effect on the numbers than ageing, migration or fertility.
For the first time in half a century, the march of secularism has stopped. In America, Canada, Britain and France, the share of people telling pollsters they are irreligious has stopped growing. Across seven other western European countries it has slowed markedly, rising by just three percentage points since 2020 compared with a 14-point surge in the previous five years. The Christian share of America's population has stabilised at around 62% since 2020; it had previously been dropping by about a percentage point every year. Spain, Portugal, Italy and Finland are no less Christian today than they were in 2019.
The stall coincides with a surprising increase in Christian faith among younger people, particularly Generation Z (born 1997–2012). Across three surveys in 2023–24, the share of young Americans identifying as Christian rose from 45% to 51%. The "nones" fell by four points, to 41%. At Harvard, half of undergraduates attended a chaplain-run event or religious service in the 2025 academic year.
Young men have become particularly devout, overturning a long-standing norm that women are the more religious sex. In America, Gen Z women are now more likely to have no religious affiliation than their male peers, according to the American Enterprise Institute. In Britain a YouGov poll found 21% of young men who identify as Christian now attend church, up from 4% in 2018, compared with 12% of young women.
The most plausible explanation is the covid-19 pandemic. Lockdowns, social isolation and economic shocks hit almost all countries and age cohorts at about the time the data on religious belief reached an inflection point. In all 14 Western countries surveyed by Pew, more people said their faith was strengthened by the pandemic than weakened. Research by Jeanet Sinding Bentzen at the University of Copenhagen shows internet searches for prayer and religious practices shot up in almost every country in 2020. Her previous work on earthquakes shows that religiosity tends to remain elevated for up to 12 years after a catastrophic event.
Adult baptisms in France at Easter 2025 jumped by 45% to more than 10,000, the most in 20 years; two in five were Gen Zs, double the share in 2019. Baptisms in Austria and Belgium also rose. Converts to the Church of Norway doubled to 4,000 in 2023. In Sweden, active withdrawals from the Church of Sweden have fallen for five years and baptisms among young adults have more than doubled since 2019.
If the net outflow of the devout were to end, Christians would retain their majority in America for at least the next 50 years, rather than falling below 45% as previously expected, according to Stephanie Kramer of Pew. Immigration does not explain the plateau: in America, newcomers tend to be less Christian than the native-born, and migrants to Europe also tend to be non-Christian.
Time to take stock. Go home with some office supplies.