WASHINGTON, D.C. — Driven by a recent increase, young men in the U.S. have now surpassed young women in saying religion is “very important” in their lives. Gallup’s latest data, from 2024-2025, show 42% of young men saying religion is very important to them, up sharply from 28% in 2022-2023. By contrast, during this period, young women’s attachment to religion has held steady at about 30%.
Although young men had previously tied young women on this key marker of religiosity, young men now lead by a statistically significant margin. The recent increase among young men also contrasts with minimal changes since 2022-2023 among older men and women.
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With the recent surge in their attachment to religion, young men have returned to the high point of their expressed religiosity of the past 25 years, roughly tying the 43% found in 2000-2001. By contrast, women of all age groups and older men are at or near their historical lows.
These findings are based on biennial aggregates of Gallup’s religion data from 2000-2001 through 2024-2025, allowing for stable estimates across age and gender groups.
Gender Gap Reversed Among Young Adults
Young women were significantly more attached to religion than young men were at the start of the millennium, leading by nine percentage points (52% vs. 43%) in calling religion “very important” in their lives. That gap widened to as much as 16 points in the early to mid-2000s before steadily narrowing over the next decade.
By the mid-2010s, the difference had shrunk to about five points, and the two groups remained about this closely aligned through 2022-2023. The most recent data mark a clear break, with young men now surpassing young women on this measure of religious importance.
This reversal is unique to those aged 18 to 29. Among adults aged 30 and older, women remain more religious than men.
The percentage of young men saying religion is very important to them is now similar to the percentage for men aged 30-49 and only slightly lower than for senior men. Young women, by contrast, are now by far the least religious women. At 29% calling religion very important, women aged 18-29 trail the next-least religious group, 30- to 49-year-old women, by 18 points and are less than half as likely as senior women to say religion is very important.
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Religious Identity
Even as young men have become more religious since 2022-2023, there has been little change since then in the percentage identifying with a religious faith. In 2024-2025, 63% of young men report a specific religious affiliation (such as Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or another religion), statistically unchanged from the 61% recorded in 2022-2023. However, this is up longer term from their low point of 57% in 2016-2017 and is the highest recorded for young men since 2012-2013.
As the proportion of young men expressing a religious identity has been rising since 2016-2017, the proportion of young women doing so has been decreasing, falling six points to 60% today. Given this, young men have had the slight edge in religious affiliation since 2020-2021.
Meanwhile, religious identity among all older age groups of men and women is now at or near its low points in the trends since 2000-2001.
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The gender gap on religious identity in 2024-2025 is minimal for all ages, with women edging ahead of men among those 65 and older. Age shows greater variation regardless of gender, as identity levels increase with age.
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Religious Attendance
Gallup’s key behavioral measure of religiosity — self-reported attendance at a church or other house of worship — shows changes among young men that mirror the patterns seen for the importance of religion.
The percentage of young men reporting monthly or more frequent attendance at religious services rose seven points between 2022-2023 and 2024-2025, reaching 40% — its highest level since 2012-2013. This followed a stretch from 2016-2017 through 2022-2023 when young men’s attendance had languished near 33%.
Young women’s attendance has also increased modestly since 2022-2023, rising three points to 39%. However, the most recent rate remains far below the levels recorded in the early 2000s.
In contrast to the currently elevated level of attendance among young men, the latest attendance rates of older men and older women are at or near their trend lows.
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Young men (40%) and young women (39%) are now statistically tied in attendance. Notably, young men are more on par with older men in religious attendance (a four-point difference) than young women are with older women (12 points), further underscoring the divergence between young women and the rest of the population.
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According to Gallup’s monthly measurement of religious attendance thus far in 2026, 40% of young men continue to attend about weekly or monthly, consistent with 2025.
Growth Concentrated Among Young Republicans
The gender/age trends can be examined across other demographic variables in order to shed light on the reasons for young men’s renewed religiosity. The results show no strong differences by education or region of the country. However, there are significant differences by party identification.
The analysis examined attendance based on party affiliation, with independents who lean toward each party included with partisans — Republicans/Republican leaners and Democrats/Democratic leaners. This provides larger sample sizes than the unleaned party groups, as well as better reflecting the data whereby changes in party leaners’ attendance over the past decade have mirrored those of core partisans.
Because Gallup asks the religious attendance question more frequently than the religious importance question, attendance is used as the measure of religiosity for this political analysis. This yields more reliable estimates for each biennial period across education and party subgroups.
Since 2022-2023, attendance has risen seven points among young Republican men, eight points among young Republican women and three points among young Democratic men. Only young Democratic women show little change.
Longer-term, however, attendance among young Republican men has been trending upward since 2018-2019, while young Democratic men’s attendance has generally declined. The recent increase in young Republican women’s attendance contrasts with no meaningful change among young Democratic women.
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The Interplay of Gender, Party and Religiosity
These partisan shifts affect the overall trends among young men and women differently because of distinct differences in party identification between the two groups.
In 2024-2025, 48% of young men identified as or leaned Republican, compared with 41% who identified as or leaned Democratic. By contrast, among young women, only 27% identified as or leaned Republican, while 60% identified as or leaned Democratic.
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Given the relatively large proportion of young men who are Republican, the upward trends in their religiosity have a significant impact on overall trends among young men. Even though young Republican women have also become more religiously engaged, they represent a relatively small proportion of all young women. As a result, the impact of changes in religiosity among young Republican women on young women as a whole is limited.
Implications
The religiosity of Americans as a whole remains at a low ebb, with the importance of religion to people, their self-reported attendance and their identification with a religion all holding at or near the lowest levels in Gallup’s long-term trends. Yet young men appear to be an emerging exception to the rule.
After years of declining religiosity, the percentage of young men saying religion is very important in their lives and reporting attendance at religious services rose markedly between 2022-2023 and 2024-2025. This has resulted in a reversal of the gender gap among young adults on importance of religion and a rare tie in their religious attendance. Meanwhile, young men retain the slight edge over young women in having a religious preference that first appeared in 2020-2021.
The finding that Republicans have driven heightened religious attendance among young men — and that a similar increase has occurred among young Republican women — suggests political dynamics may be playing a role in religious changes among the nation’s young adults.
Future Gallup polling will indicate whether this is a temporary phase or a lasting change that may ultimately reverse the traditional gender gap in religiosity among older Americans.
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