Measuring Life Satisfaction Across America’s ‘Nones’

(ANALYSIS) One of the most important questions we are trying to answer in The Nones Project is: Do non-religious people have feelings of self-worth and satisfaction that are similar to traditionally religious Americans?

In many ways, this may be the most important issue to address when talking about the rising share of nones in the United States.

I’ve had many people say to me, “If those atheists and agnostics are living lives of meaning and hope, then all those Christians out there just need to leave them alone.”

Or, sometimes I hear the opposite: “There’s no way the nones have a life of peace and satisfaction that is on par with people of faith. If they don’t have a personal relationship with God, their mental health is going to struggle.”

These perspectives are certainly strongly held by a vocal number of people online, and we felt like it was our job to try and understand just what was going on with concepts like self-worth, optimism, purpose, and life satisfaction.

One simple question we added was, “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” They were given a total of seven response options that ranged from completely dissatisfied to completely satisfied.

Here’s the average score for each of the four types of nones, as well as the Protestants and the Catholics in the sample.

You can read the rest of this post on Substack.

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Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on X at @ryanburge.