Gallup finds less-religious Americans are drinking less than before

Americans who say they have no religion, Catholics and people who attend religious services less than once a week are drinking less alcohol than they did in the past, according to a new Gallup analysis that points to a broad shift in U.S. drinking habits and challenges a long-held assumption that lower religious involvement would lead to higher alcohol use.

Gallup’s review found that alcohol consumption has fallen across several religious and nonreligious groups at the same time that religious affiliation and church attendance have declined in the United States. In earlier years, people who were less religious were generally more likely to drink than those who attended services regularly. The newer data show that pattern has weakened as drinking has dropped among many of the same groups that once stood out for higher alcohol use.

A large part of the overall national decline comes from adults who attend religious services less than weekly, Gallup said. That group makes up a growing share of the country, and its alcohol use has fallen to the lowest level recorded in Gallup’s tracking. Drinking among people who attend services every week has also declined from a peak seen between 2017 and 2022, although that group’s current level is similar to some earlier periods.

The change is tied in part to the country’s shifting religious makeup. Weekly churchgoers now account for about 20% of U.S. adults, down from roughly 30% about 15 years ago, according to the analysis. Protestants make up about 44% of adults, Catholics about 20% and people with no religious identity about 25%.

Those population shares have moved sharply over time. Gallup said the share of adults with no religious affiliation has nearly doubled over the past 15 years, while the Catholic share has declined and the Protestant share has dropped from a level that once exceeded half the population. On its own, that demographic change might have suggested stable or even higher alcohol consumption nationally, because people with no religious identity have historically been more likely to drink than Protestants. Instead, drinking also fell within that unaffiliated group.

Gallup said the historical gap among Protestants, Catholics and adults with no religious identity has narrowed. Protestants have traditionally been less likely to drink than Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated. That difference has become much smaller as alcohol use has fallen among Catholics and among people who say they have no religion. Protestants and Catholics now report similar levels of drinking, while the unaffiliated remain somewhat more likely to drink than either group.

The findings are notable because they run against a common theory about religion and alcohol use in the United States. If fewer Americans belong to a church or attend services regularly, one possible expectation would be that drinking would rise as religious restrictions weakened. Gallup’s numbers suggest the opposite has happened in recent years. The decline in drinking has spread into groups that were once seen as more likely to consume alcohol.

Gallup said changing views about alcohol and health may be one reason. The polling organization has found that Americans are increasingly likely to say even moderate drinking is bad for their health. That view has grown more common among Protestants, Catholics and adults with no religious affiliation.

Among those three groups, people with no religious identity are now the most likely to say moderate drinking is unhealthy, followed by Catholics and then Protestants, Gallup found. In the past, weekly churchgoers were more likely than people who rarely or never attended services to see moderate drinking as harmful. More recently, those differences have narrowed as health concerns have risen across religious lines.

Gallup cautioned that the data do not prove that changing health beliefs caused people to drink less. The analysis points to a correlation, not a confirmed cause. Still, the overlap between greater concern about alcohol’s health effects and lower reported drinking adds to a broader body of evidence that consumer attitudes toward alcohol are shifting, including among people who were once thought to be less constrained by religious practice.

The pattern could matter well beyond public opinion research. For brewers, wineries, distillers and other beverage companies, the latest data suggest weak alcohol demand may not be limited to one age, faith or cultural segment. If lower consumption is now spreading across Catholics, infrequent churchgoers and Americans with no religious affiliation, companies may face softer demand across multiple categories rather than in a narrow slice of the market. That could affect sales forecasts, product planning and the balance between alcoholic and nonalcoholic offerings.

The analysis also adds detail to a broader national story in which reduced drinking is no longer explained only by stricter religious norms or by the habits of one denomination. Instead, Gallup’s numbers suggest the drop is happening inside groups whose relative size has changed significantly over the past 15 years, especially the fast-growing share of adults with no religious affiliation. That makes the trend harder to dismiss as a simple result of population replacement.

What the data do show clearly is that the old divide between more religious Americans and less religious Americans is no longer as useful for predicting who drinks. Religious practice still matters in some ways, but the differences are smaller than they once were, and concern about health now appears to cut across those lines. Gallup said that decline among Catholics, people with no religious identity and adults who attend services less than weekly is now a major part of the national movement away from alcohol.