Abstract Research on religion and aging in the United States and around the world has been facili... more Abstract Research on religion and aging in the United States and around the world has been facilitated by a spate of new data sources and studies. It is now clear that whatever was known about religion and aging at the individual level must now be placed in the context of secularization, not only in Western Europe where it has long been recognized, but also in the United States. In this chapter we outline the excellent new research on the demography of religion around the world, and the inexorable process of secularization that is changing the context for current cohorts of older adults and the less religious cohorts that will follow them. We review the patterns of the uneven distribution of religiosity both within and between countries, the demographic and social processes that contribute to these patterns, and speculate on the consequences of these dramatic social changes for coming generations of older adults.
International Journal of Aging & Human Development, Aug 30, 2021
Secularization has been studied for decades by sociologists of religion. Long-running surveys in ... more Secularization has been studied for decades by sociologists of religion. Long-running surveys in the United States and Europe show steady generational decline in religious affiliation and participation, and yet this trend has largely been ignored by gerontologists and life course researchers. We examined data from the Health and Retirement Study, hypothesizing between-cohort declines in religious participation. Based on data from a sample stratified by 10-year birth cohorts, we identified variation in patterns of religious involvement from 2004 to 2016. Measures of attending religious services, feeling religion is very important, and having good friends in the congregation show age-graded patterns; older cohorts have a higher level of religiosity than those following them, with only minor exceptions. For all three measures, differences by cohort within waves of data are statistically significant. We confirm, with longitudinal data, the findings of repeated cross-sectional surveys in the United States showing a generational pattern of decline in religiousness. The consequences of this loss of a common social tie for future older cohorts are unknown, since current older cohorts still maintain a high level of religious participation. However, future generations of older adults are likely to be less familiar with social support from religious institutions, and those institutions may be less available to provide such support as the apparently inexorable processes of secularization continue.
... test the sa-lience of these holidays for individual-group bonds, we examine the deaths during... more ... test the sa-lience of these holidays for individual-group bonds, we examine the deaths during the month up to and including the holiday and the month after the major Christian and Jewish observances: Christmas, Easter, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Passover, with the ...
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Nov 1, 1995
Self-ratings of health by individuals responding to surveys have shown themselves to be potent pr... more Self-ratings of health by individuals responding to surveys have shown themselves to be potent predictors of mortality in a growing number of studies; they appear to contribute significant additional independent information to health status indicators gathered through self-reported health histories or medical examinations. A key question raised by these studies is: What are the mediating processes involved in the association? Specifically, do poor self-ratings increase the risk of disability and morbidity, and are these outcomes intervening steps in the link to mortality? In this report we address the first question, of self-ratings predicting future levels of functional disability, our choice of an index of overall impact of morbidity. Data come from the New Haven Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE) site (N = 2,812). Results show that self-ratings of health in 1982, net of baseline functional ability, health and sociodemographic status, are associated with changes in functional ability over periods of one through six years. These findings extend our understanding of the meaning of excellent, good, fair, and poor ratings of health, and that they have implications not just for survival but for the loss or maintenance of functional ability in daily life.
Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative... more Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative populations, with relatively little progress toward understanding the information processing that individuals use to arrive at these ratings. With subsamples of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS) data for respondents with circulatory system disease (N = 3,709) and respondents with no diagnosable disorders (N = 1,127) at baseline, we test the idea that individuals with experience of chronic disease of the circulatory system will have more predictive self-ratings of health than healthy individuals. Poor or fair self-rated health increased the adjusted hazard of all-cause mortality for respondents with circulatory system disease, but not for respondents who were healthy. Additional analyses confirm that poor or fair self-rated health is particularly predictive for respondents with self-reported history of circulatory system diagnoses and perception of symptoms, but not for respondents without symptoms or diagnoses prior to the NHANES physical exam.
Abstract Research on religion and aging in the United States and around the world has been facili... more Abstract Research on religion and aging in the United States and around the world has been facilitated by a spate of new data sources and studies. It is now clear that whatever was known about religion and aging at the individual level must now be placed in the context of secularization, not only in Western Europe where it has long been recognized, but also in the United States. In this chapter we outline the excellent new research on the demography of religion around the world, and the inexorable process of secularization that is changing the context for current cohorts of older adults and the less religious cohorts that will follow them. We review the patterns of the uneven distribution of religiosity both within and between countries, the demographic and social processes that contribute to these patterns, and speculate on the consequences of these dramatic social changes for coming generations of older adults.
International Journal of Aging & Human Development, Aug 30, 2021
Secularization has been studied for decades by sociologists of religion. Long-running surveys in ... more Secularization has been studied for decades by sociologists of religion. Long-running surveys in the United States and Europe show steady generational decline in religious affiliation and participation, and yet this trend has largely been ignored by gerontologists and life course researchers. We examined data from the Health and Retirement Study, hypothesizing between-cohort declines in religious participation. Based on data from a sample stratified by 10-year birth cohorts, we identified variation in patterns of religious involvement from 2004 to 2016. Measures of attending religious services, feeling religion is very important, and having good friends in the congregation show age-graded patterns; older cohorts have a higher level of religiosity than those following them, with only minor exceptions. For all three measures, differences by cohort within waves of data are statistically significant. We confirm, with longitudinal data, the findings of repeated cross-sectional surveys in the United States showing a generational pattern of decline in religiousness. The consequences of this loss of a common social tie for future older cohorts are unknown, since current older cohorts still maintain a high level of religious participation. However, future generations of older adults are likely to be less familiar with social support from religious institutions, and those institutions may be less available to provide such support as the apparently inexorable processes of secularization continue.
... test the sa-lience of these holidays for individual-group bonds, we examine the deaths during... more ... test the sa-lience of these holidays for individual-group bonds, we examine the deaths during the month up to and including the holiday and the month after the major Christian and Jewish observances: Christmas, Easter, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Passover, with the ...
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Nov 1, 1995
Self-ratings of health by individuals responding to surveys have shown themselves to be potent pr... more Self-ratings of health by individuals responding to surveys have shown themselves to be potent predictors of mortality in a growing number of studies; they appear to contribute significant additional independent information to health status indicators gathered through self-reported health histories or medical examinations. A key question raised by these studies is: What are the mediating processes involved in the association? Specifically, do poor self-ratings increase the risk of disability and morbidity, and are these outcomes intervening steps in the link to mortality? In this report we address the first question, of self-ratings predicting future levels of functional disability, our choice of an index of overall impact of morbidity. Data come from the New Haven Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE) site (N = 2,812). Results show that self-ratings of health in 1982, net of baseline functional ability, health and sociodemographic status, are associated with changes in functional ability over periods of one through six years. These findings extend our understanding of the meaning of excellent, good, fair, and poor ratings of health, and that they have implications not just for survival but for the loss or maintenance of functional ability in daily life.
Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative... more Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative populations, with relatively little progress toward understanding the information processing that individuals use to arrive at these ratings. With subsamples of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS) data for respondents with circulatory system disease (N = 3,709) and respondents with no diagnosable disorders (N = 1,127) at baseline, we test the idea that individuals with experience of chronic disease of the circulatory system will have more predictive self-ratings of health than healthy individuals. Poor or fair self-rated health increased the adjusted hazard of all-cause mortality for respondents with circulatory system disease, but not for respondents who were healthy. Additional analyses confirm that poor or fair self-rated health is particularly predictive for respondents with self-reported history of circulatory system diagnoses and perception of symptoms, but not for respondents without symptoms or diagnoses prior to the NHANES physical exam.
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